# 


/<y 
</• 

\t*n 


/^ 


wfl 


&> 
ff 

•m 

*• 

J^       r- 


- 


/" 
_ 


I 


LEO    XIII 


AND 


MODERN   CIVILIZATION 


BY 


J.     BLEECPCER     MILLER, 

OF  THE  NEW  YORK  BAR. 

AUTHOR  OF   "TRADE   ORGANIZATIONS  IN  POLITICS,   OR  FEDERALISM 

IN  CITIES;^    "TRADE  ORGANIZATIONS  IN  RELIGION;"    "DAS 

ENGLISCHE  RECHT  UND   DAS  R^MISCHE  RECHT  ALS 

ERZEUGNISSE  INDO-GERMANISCHF.R  VOLKER." 


NEW    YORK : 

THE  RSKDALE  PRESS. 


COPYRIGHT. 

J.  BLEECKER  MILLER, 
1897. 


From  BISHOP  POTTER: 

"Accept  my  thanks  for  your  'Leo  XIII  and  Modern 
Civilizations  It  is  a  very  timely  and  suggestive  book, 
not  merely  because  it  traces  the  principles  of  a  great 
ecclesiastical  policy  to  its  pagan  source,  but  because  it 
reveals  the  hostility  of  that  policy  to  American  ideals, 
whether  of  the  state •,  the  family,  or  the  freedom  of  the 
individual.  It  is  a  book  for  statesmen,  for  workingmcn, 
for  parents,  for  all  loyal  citizens  to  read  and  ponder;  and 
Us  temperate  tone  and  wide  range  of  authorities  ought 
to  make  it  a  handbook  for  all  who  are  concerned  for  the 
integrity  of  our  institutions  and  the  maintenance  of  our 
liberties." 

From  BISHOP  DOANE: 

"/  commend  to  the  attentive  study  of  our  citizens 
the  startling  and  important  facts  collected  in  'Leo  XIII 
and  Modern  Civilization.1  " 

from  PROFESSOR  BODY 

of  the  General  Theological  Seminary  : 

"/  have  been  much  interested  in  your  work  on  'Leo 
XIII  and  Modern  Civilization.' 

"It  places  the  reader  in  possession  of  a  mass  of 
material  relative  to  the  aims  and  policy  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  selected  from  original  sources,  of  great 
interest  and  information  to  all  American  citizens.  T/ie 
importance  of  the  subject  can  hardly  be  overrated,  and  it  is 
treated  in  a  way  intelligible  to  all.  I  was  especially  struck 
rcith  the  arguments  on  astrology  as  an  original  factor  in 
Roman  philosophy.  This  opens  up  an  apparently  new 
ll;:e  of  historical  investigation  well  worthy  of  attention." 


KMMIMKM*  F4TH888  ^ 

Sf  A&yamHUS  SHURQtt 


INDEX. 


PACE 

[NTRODUCTION _  _ 1- 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  STATE... 28 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORKINGMAN 90 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  FAMILY in 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL ...  126 

THE  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE 155 

CONCLUSION...  186 


--  .  * 


INTRODUCTION. 

While  the  booming  cannons  and  pealing  bells  were 
announcing  during  the  past  year  that  a  quarter  of  a 
century  had  fled  since  the  defeat  of  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Papal  Government  by  force  of  arms  at 
the  Porta  Pia,  is  it  not  an  appropriate  time  to  give  a 
few  thoughts  also  to  the  victory  which  the  Papacy 
won  in  that  same  year,  in  the  spiritual  field  ? 

The  war  concerning  the  prerogatives  of  the  Pope 
which  was  ended  by  this  victory  in  favor  of  infalli- 
bility was  a  long  one,  extending  over  centuries,  pros- 
ecuted on  one  side  against  enormous  odds  with  all 
the  sagacity  and  vigor  which  has  become  identified 
with  the  name  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  on  the 
other  hand  with  all  the  learning  and  piety  associated 
with  the  name  of  Gallicanism. 

Twenty-five  years  may  seem  perhaps  too  short  a 
time  to  estimate  the  full  effect  of  a  victory,  so  im- 
portant that  men  have  been  willing  to  toil  through 
centuries  for  its  achievement ;  but  the  task  is  light- 
ened by  the  fact  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
during  the  greater  part  of  this  time,  had  for  its  head 
a  pontiff  of  the  extraordinary  enterprise,  vigor  and 
learning  of  Leo  XIII.,  who  has  not  hesitated  to  use 
to  its  fullest  extent  what  was  probably  the  greatest 
opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  power  ever  given  to 
mortal  man,  by  outlining  the  future  of  Roman  Cath- 
olic thought,  in  all  the  chief  departments  of  human 
life. 


As  Leo  XIII.  possesses  also  the  unrestricted  power 
of  selecting  the  men  who  will  nominate  his  successor, 
and  has  had  the  similar  right  of  nominating  directly 
or  indirectly  the  bishops,  clergy  and  teachers  for  the 
whole  Church  during  the  long  period  of  his  pontifi- 
cate, it  seems  most  improbable  that  any  attempt  to 
alter  the  plan  laid  out  by  him  for  the  Church's  de- 
velopment would  be  made,  even  if  the  very  idea  of 
the  infallibility  of  its  author  did  not  negative  the 
possibility  of  a  retreat  or  of  even  a  criticism.  More- 
over irresolution  is  certainly  not  a  vice  of  the 
school  which  has  struggled  so  long  and  successfully 
for  papal  predominance,  and  when  we  see  the  first 
use  made  of  this  power  to  be  in  furtherance  of  the 
primary  doctrines  of  De  Maistre,  Cortes  and  Gous- 
set,  we  can  safely  assume  that  this  course  will  not  be 
changed  until  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  realize 
in  practice  their  ultimate  conclusions. 

Cortes,  the  revivor  of  Catholicism  in  Spain  and 
director  of  the  studies  of  Queen  Isabella  of  Spain, 
whose  "  Essay  on  Catholicism  "  was  translated  into 
French,  with  the  approval  of  Pius  IX.,  says :  "  Cathol- 
icism is  a  complete  system  of  civilization.  It  is  so 
complete  that  in  its  immensity  it  includes  every- 
thing— the  science  of  God,  of  angels,  of  the  universe 
and  of  men.  Catholicism  controls  the  body,  the 
senses  and  the  souls  of  men.  Its  dogmatic  theology 
teaches  men  what  they  must  believe ;  its  ethics  in- 
struct them  as  to  the  duties  of  life.  Without  Cathol- 
icism there  can  be  neither  good  sense  among  the 
lower  ranks  nor  virtue  among  the  middle  classes  nor 
sanctity  among  the  eminent." 


The  details  of  this  plan  of  civilization  had  not 
however  been  authoritatively  announced  by  the  pre- 
decessors of  Leo  XIII.  The  controversy  between 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  Cardinal  Manning,  which  sprang 
up  at  the  time  of  the  promulgation  of  the  Vatican 
Decrees,  ended  with  the  declaration  on  the  part 
of  the  Cardinal :  "  But  what  has  this  to  do  with 
Civil  Allegiance  ?  There  is  not  a  syllable  on  the 
subject  (in  the  Vatican  Decrees) ;  there  is  not  a 
proposition  which  can  be  twisted  or  tortured  into 
such  a  meaning.  For  the  present  it  will  be  enough 
to  give  the  reason  why  the  Vatican  Council  did 
not  touch  the  question  of  the  relations  of  the  Church 
to  the  Civil  Powers.  The  reason  is  simple.  It 
intended  not  to  touch  them  until  it  could  treat  them 
fully  and  as  a  whole.  And  it  has  carefully  adhered 
to  its  intention."  ("  Vatican  Decrees,"  pp.  20  and  35.) 

Pius  IX.  never  attempted  to  supply  this  omission  ; 
his  Syllabus  of  Errors  was  published  long  before  the 
Vatican  Decrees,  and  besides,  being  merely  in  a 
negative  form,  it  was  not  promulgated  by  him  as  a 
whole  in  the  form  of  an  encyclical.  He  was  appar- 
ently content  to  supply  the  material — like  another 
David,  leaving  the  construction  of  the  temple  to  his 
successor,  the  Solomon  of  the  Church.  The  noise- 
less manner  in  which  the  latter  has  carried  on  his 
part  of  the  work  has  concealed  it  from  public  atten- 
tion— many  would  even  deny  that  it  had  been  begun. 

How  faithfully  Leo  XIII.  has  striven  to  carry  out 
this  great  undertaking  appears  from  the  testimony 
of  his  most  ardent  admirers ;  in  the  words  of  Car- 
dinal Satolli :  ;<  With  regard  to  sociology,  it  is  an- 


8 

other  of  the  Holy  Father's  (Leo  XI 1 1.)  glories  at  this 
latter  end  of  the  iQth  century,  his  Encyclicals  are  re- 
garded as  so  many  admirable  parts  of  a  grand  doc- 
trinal system,  comprehensive  and  universal,  embra- 
cing all  the  social  sciences,  beginning  with  the  funda- 
mental theorems  of  natural  law  and  going  to  the 
consideration  of  the  political  constitution  of  States 
and  every  economic  question.  "  ("Loyalty  to  Church 
and  State,"  p.  246.) 

In  an  article  by  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Zahm  in  the  North 
American  Review  for  August,  1895,  entitled  '•  Leo 
XIII.  and  the  Social  Question  "  we  read  :  "  In  1891, 
Leo  XIII.  promulgated  a  new  economic  charter — 
Leo  XIII.  chose  this  prophetic  hour  to  make  known 
the  social  evangel  to  the  combatant's  on  both  sides. 
As  in  the  politico-religious  order  Leo  XIII.  has 
through  his  Encyclical  Immortale  Dei,  preached  the 
code  of  reconciliation,  so  has  he  in  the  economic 
order,  promulgated  the  charter  of  social  harmony." 

How  binding  on  Roman  Catholics  these  opinions 
of  the  Pope  on  social  and  political  questions  are  in- 
tended to  be,  appears  from  the  Encyclical  of  Leo 
XIII.  to  the  Belgian  Episcopate  on  the  Social  Ques 
tion,  dated  July  10,  1895  :  "  Even  amongst  the  Catho- 
lics of  Belgium,  whose  zeal  in  carrying  out  teachings 
of  this  kind  (of  Leo  XT II.  on  the  social  question)  is 
most  notable,  this  good  fruit  has  been  apparent ;  not 
however  to  such  a  degree  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  a  country  and  a  race  so  well  qualified  to 
profit  by  such  teachings.  What  the  obstacle  has 
been  is  well  known.  Differences  of  view,  enter- 
tained no  doubt  with  good  intention,  have  been  ad- 


hered  to  and  maintained  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
full  effect  of  our  teachings  could  not  b?  felt,  and 
harmony  could  not  remain  complete  amongst  the 
Catholics.  In  our  opinion,  then,  the  best  step  to 
take,  and  one  which  we  most  strongly  recommend,  is 
that  you  (the  Bishops)  should  meet  in  congress  with 
as  little  delay  as  possible.  For  this  social  question 
should  not  be  regarded  merely  under  one  aspect.  It 
certainly  is  concerned  with  material  welfare,  but  it 
specially  affects  religion  and  morals,  and  naturally 
comes  into  relation  with  the  legislation  of  states  ;  so 
that  in  a  word,  broadly  speaking,  it  has  to  do  with 
the  rights  and  duties  of  all  classes.  There  can  un- 
doubtedly be  no  Catholic,  loving  alike  his  religion 
and  his  country,  who  will  not  be  willing  to  accept 
and  observe  your  prudent  decisions. 

"  Wherefore,  venerable  brethren,  we  desire  you  to 
exhort  and  admonish  the  Catholics  in  our  name  in 
order  that  henceforth,  in  matters  of  this  kind, 
whether  in  the  journals,  or  similar  publications,  they 
may  refrain  from  all  controversy  and  disputes  among 
themselves;  still  more  that  they  may  avoid  mutual 
reprimands  and  may  not  presume  to  anticipate  the 
decisions  of  legitimate  authority."  (Catholic  Review 
for  1895,  page  118). 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  laity  may  be  prohibited 
from  even  discussing  a  matter  of  such  deep  ramifica- 
tions as  the  social  question  when  once  it  has  been 
passed  upon  by  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  but  that 
they  must  quietly  "  accept  and  observe  "  the  decisions 
of  his  appointees.  As  Professor  Nitti  says  in  his 
"Catholic  Socialism  "  (p.  381):  "  A  Papal  Encyclical 


10 

bears  a  truly  absolute  character  of  moral  obligation, 
for  it  is  the  declaration  of  a  voice  which  has  the 
weight  of  an  absolute  moral  and  spiritual  law  for 
over  two  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  Catholics." 

In  the  official  edition  of  the  Encyclicals,  by  the 
Order  of  St.  Augustine,  published  at  Bruges,  in  1887, 
in  the  introduction  they  are  termed  "  the  Oracles  of 
the  Infallible  Master." 

The  sincere  Romanist  of  to-day  has  therefore  many 
things  to  believe  which  were  not  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  the  days  of  the  Oxford  movement  or  even  in 
those  of  the  Gladstone- Manning  controversy.  Be- 
fore the  declaration  of  the  doctrine  of  infallibility, 
there  was  room  for  various  opinions  as  to  whether 
the  claims  for  universal  sovereignty  of  the  mediae- 
val Popes  need  be  accepted  by  the  faithful ;  and 
even  after  the  declaration  of  that  doctrine,  there 
might  still  be  doubt  as  to  the  exact  nature  of  those 
claims,  and  as  to  whether  they  were  applicable  to 
modern  nations  which  had  thrown  off  all  obedience 
to  Rome,  as  was  so  earnestly  asserted  by  Cardinal 
Manning  in  his  answer  to  Mr.  Gladstone  ("  Vatican 
Decrees,"  p.  79).  But  since  the  encyclicals  of  Leo 
XIII.  have  announced  a  definite  scheme  as  to  the 
relation  of  Church  and  State,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
on  this  subject. 

In  the  same  way,  Cardinal  Manning  could  write 
to  Wilberforce  in  1852  (Life  of  Manning,  vol.  II., 
page  31): 

"  It  (the  Church)  has  no  jurisdiction  in  science  or 
philosophy.  The  office  of  the  Church  is  Divine  and 
unerring  within  the  sphere  of  the  original  revelation. 


II 

But  ontology  and  metaphysics  are  no  part  of  it.  There 
are  many  philosophies  about  '  matter '  and  '  sub- 
stance/ etc.,  but  none  are  authoritative.  They  are 
many  because  no  one  has  been  defined."  Since,  how- 
ever, the  philosophy  of  one  of  the  Scholastic  Doctors 
has  received  the  official  sanction  of  the  Infallible 
Head  of  the  Church,  this  uncertainty  no  longer 
exists. 

As  Cardinal  Vaughan  declares,  concerning  the 
recent  movement  for  a  reunion  of  Christendom  : 

"The  essence  of  the  Anglican  position  on  the 
other  hand,  and  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  is  the  negation  of  the  Roman  claim.  It  de- 
clares (i)  that  the  Pope  has  not  authority  by  a  divine 
right  bestowed  by  Christ  on  blessed  Peter,  to  teach 
and  rule  the  whole  tDhurch  of  God  ;  (2)  that  the  Pope 
has  no  jurisdiction  in  England.  The  whole  question 
of  reunion  lies,  therefore,  within  a  nutshell.  It  is 
not  a  question  of  examining  and  accepting  a  long 
list  of  Catholic  doctrines.  It  is  simply  a  question 
of  the  fundamental  and  essential  constitution  of  the 
Church.  Did  the  Divine  Founder  give  to  His 
Church  a  visible  head  upon  earth,  with  power  to 
preach,  define,  settle  controversies,  and  govern  ?  I 
fail  to  see  the  use  of  discussing  any  other  subject. 
Settle  this  matter,  and  everything  falls  into  its  proper 
place  and  becomes  easy.  Reject  this,  and  there  is  no 
basis  on  which  reunion  is  possible,  even  though  men 
were  prepared  to  affix  their  signature  to  every  other 
doctrine  taught  in  the  Creed  of  Pope  Pius  IV." 

Moreover,  not  only  has  this  plan  of  world-wide 
government  been  announced,  but  a  most  active 


12 

propaganda  has  been  started  in  its  favor.  Leo  XIII. 
and  his  school  are  perfectly  sincere  in  their  belief 
that  their  plan  will  certainly  make  earth  as  nearly  as 
possible  resemble  Heaven.  They  throw  back  the 
charge  of  ignorance  and  stupidity,  so  often  hurled 
against  their  Church,  with  the  greatest  vigor  and 
honesty,  and  have  not  the  least  fear  of  their  victory 
in  an  intellectual  contest,  if  the  argument  be  carried 
to  its  full  and  fair  conclusion.  The  new  University 
at  Washington  and  the  Summer  Schools  throughout 
the  country  are  founded  for  the  express  purpose  of 
spreading  these  theories  of  Church  and  State.  As 
Cardinal  Satolli  announced  in  his  remarks  on  the 
Catholic  Summer  School  ("  Loyalty  to  Church  and 
State,"  p.  92)  :  "  And  I  should  be  very  much  pleased 
to  see  the  Catholic  Summer  School  incorporate  with 
its  object  another  point  of  very  great  importance, 
namely,  the  presentation  to  the  American  people  of 
the  precise  idea  of  the  relations  between  the  Church 
and  State.  In  this  matter  I  find  a  surprising  want  of 
knowledge  in  America.  I  am  speaking  about  what 
is  commonly  called  Ecclesiastical  Law,  which  pre- 
cisely deals  with  the  fundamental,  or  rather  the 
essential  constitution  of  the  Church  and  the  State, 
and  determines  the  limits  of  action  of  both  author- 
ities in  such  a  way  as  to  prevent  the  conflicts  that  un- 
fortunately disturb  the  social  peace  and  retard  social 
progress." 

In  the  words  of  Professor  Nitti,  whose  work  on 
Catholic  Socialism  is  said  by  Roman  Catholic  news- 
papers to  have  been  largely  consulted  by  the  Pope 
for  his  Encyclical  on  the  Labor  Question  (p.  160): 


13 

"  Now,.,  it  is  not  enough  that  the  teachings  and 
examples  of  Christ  be  the  foundation  to  our  pri- 
vate and  public  life.  We  must  strive  to  restore  to 
our  public  and  social  institutions  their  former  Chris- 
tian character,  raising  up  on  the  ruins  of  our  present 
pagan  legislation  another  and  better,  which,  like  that 
of  Charlemagne,  may  merit  to  be  called  the  faithful 
follower  of  canon  law,  Canonum  pedisequa." 

The  French  Monsignor  Mermillord  in  presenting 
to  the  Pontiff  the  representatives  of  the  Union  Cath- 
olique  d'etudes  socials  et  economiques  expressed 
himself  to  the  same  effect : 

"  Not  only  does  modern  law  make  no  account 
whatever  of  the  laws  of  the  Church,  but  the  ideas 
that  had  their  origin  in  these  laws  have  been  can- 
celled from  the  public  spirit ;  the  principles  bor- 
rowed from  the  Gospel,  and  elucidated  by  the  doc- 
tors of  the  Church,  especially  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
have  been  obscured ;  all  just  notions  in  labor  and 
property  have  been  forgotten,  decaying,  alike  the 
obligations  of  the  latter  and  the  rights  conferred  by 
the  former." 

Leo  XIII.  is  equally  positive  that  the  only  true 
remedy  for  all  evils  of  society  has  been  confided  to 
him  ;  thus  he  says  in  his  Letter  to  Cardinal  Ram, 
polla,  dated  June  15,  1887  :  "  The  Church  possesses 
this  great  wealth,  not  only  for  the  eternal  salvation 
of  souls,  which  is  its  first  work,  but  also  for  the 
safety  of  all  human  society."  To  the  same  effect  is 
his  letter  of  April  30,  1890,  addressed  to  Italian 
citizens,  and  the  introductory  sentences  in  the  En* 
cyclical  beginning  with  the  words  "  Immortale  Dei." 


14 

Whence  did  Leo  XIII.  derive  his  social  ideal 
which  is  being  so  widely  welcomed  ?  The  answer 
is  indicated  in  the  extract  from  the  address  of 
Monsignor  Mermillord,  above  set  forth,  where  he 
cites  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  as  the  great  elucidator 
of  those  principles  whose  neglect  has  caused  all 
the  woes  of  modern  society. 

Leo  XIII.  himself  has  left  no  doubt  as  to  whom  he 
considers  the  great  teacher  of  the  world.  In  the 
second  year  of  his  pontificate,  he  issued  the  encyclical 
beginning  "  JEterni  Patris  Filius,"  in  which,  after  ex- 
tolling philosophy  in  general,  he  continues  as  follows : 

"  Now  we  say  that  all  these  admirable  and  wonder- 
ful prophecies  are  only  to  be  found  in  a  cor- 
rect use  of  that  philosophy,  which  the  scholastic 
masters,  after  much  painstaking  and  wise  counsel, 
were  accustomed  to  adopt  even  in  theological  con- 
troversies  Now,  as  prince  and  master, 

Thomas  Aquinas  far  outshines  every  one  of  the 

scholastic  doctors There  is  no  part  of 

philosophy  that  he  has  not  handled  fully  and  thor- 
oughly  One  can  hardly  imagine  what 

strength,  light  and  help  this  philosophy  can  give, 

especially  to  the  study  of  natural  sciences 

Even  the  Ecumenical  Councils,  in  which  shone  the 
most  brilliant  wisdom  of  the  world,  vied  in  doing 
honor  to  Thomas  Aquinas.  In  the  Councils  of 
Lyons,  Vienna,  Florence,  and  that  of  the  Vatican, 
Thomas  assisted,  and  you  might  almost  say  presided 
at  the  deliberations,  and  decrees  of  the  Fathers; 
contending  with  irresistible  power  and  happiest  re- 
sults against  the  errors  of  Greeks,  heretics  and 


15 

rationalists.  But  Thomas's  chiefest  and  special 
honor,  and  one  he  shares  not  in  common  with  any  of 
the  Catholic  Doctors,  is,  that  the  Tridentine  Fathers, 
in  the  midst  of  the  conclave  for  order's  sake,  desired 
to  place  the  Summa  of  the  Aquinate  on  the  Altar 
beside  the  books  of  Sacred  Scripture  and  the  decrees 
of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs,  that  they  might  seek  therein 

counsel,  guidance  and  light 

"  Again  we  see  the  great  danger  which  now  threat- 
ens domestic  and  civil  society  from  the  plague  of 
perverse  opinions,  and  how  much  more  peaceable 
and  secure  would  either  be  if  a  sounder  doctrine 
were  taught  in  the  academies  and  schools,  and  one 
more  in  conformity  with  the  general  teaching  of  the 
Church,  such  as  is  found  in  the  works  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas ;  and  then  his  treatises  on  the  modern  sys- 
tem of  liberty,  which  in  our  time  is  tending  to 
license,  on  the  Divine  origin  of  authority,  on  the 
laws  and  their  binding  force,  on  the  fatherly,  just 
government  of  sovereign  princes,  on  obedience  to 
the  higher  powers,  on  mutual  charity  to  all ;  these, 
to  wit,  and  other  subjects  of  a  like  nature,  treated  of 
by  Thomas,  have  a  great  and  invincible  influence  in 
rooting  out  these  new  principles  of  right,  which  are 
recognized  as  dangerous  to  order,  peace  and  public 
safety Meantime,  let  the  teachers  intel- 
ligently chosen  by  you,  study  the  doctrine  of  S. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  with  a  view  to  gently  instill  it  into 
the  minds  of  their  pupils,  and  above  all  things  to  set 
forth  conspicuously  its  solidity  and  excellence  ;  and 
that  the  academies,  either  now  instituted  or  here- 
after to  be  instituted  by  you,  defend,  explain  and 


i6 

use  it  in  refutation  of  the  hardiest  and  most  wide- 
spreading  errors." 

In  the  succeeding  year  his  Holiness  issued  another 
proclamation  on  the  same  subject,  from  which  the 
following  extracts  are  taken  :  "  Now,  here  is  the  chief 
and  summary  of  the  reasons  by  which  we  are  actu- 
ated :  it  is,  that  St.  Thomas  is  the  most  perfect  model 
Catholics  can  propose  to  themselves  in  the  various 
branches  of  science.  In  him,  indeed,  are  centered 
all  the  lights  of  heart  and  mind  which  justly  com- 
mend imitation His  learning  is  so  vast 

that,  like  the  sea,  it  contains  all  the  wisdom  that 

comes  down  from  the  ancients For 

these  reasons,  we  deem  the  Angelic  Doctor  in  every 
respect  worthy  to  be  chosen  as  the  patron  of  all 

students We  have  been  pleased  also 

to  ask  the  advice  of  the  Sacred  Congregation  of 
Rites  upon  the  subject,  and  their  unanimous  opinion 
being  fully  in  accord  with  our  wishes,  by  virtue  of 
our  supreme  authority,  for  the  glory  of  Almighty 
God  and  the  honor  of  the  Angelic  Doctor,  for  the  in- 
crease of  learning  and  the  common  advantage  of 
human  society,  we  declare  St.  Thomas  the  Angelic 
Doctor,  the  Patron  of  Catholic  Universities,  Acade- 
mies, Faculties  and  Schools,  and  we  desire  that  he 
be  by  all  regarded,  venerated  and  honored  as  such." 

The  foregoing  citations  are  taken  from  "  Pope  Leo 
XIII.,"  by  Rev.  James  F.  Talbot  of  the  R.  C.  Cathe- 
dral of  the  Holy  Cross,  in  Boston,  (published  by 
Garrison  &  Co.,  Boston,  1886.) 

On  February  20,  1880,  Cardinal  McCloskey  of  New 
York,  Archbishops  Williams  of  Boston  and  Wood  of 


'7 

Philadelphia,  together  with  their  fourteen  suffragan 
bishops,  united  in  writing  Pope  Leo  a  letter,  in  which 
they  said,  with  reference  to  the  foregoing  Encyclical : 
"  On  our  part  we  promise  to  second  your  desires  to 
the  best  of  our  powers.  We  will  see  that  no  school 
or  seminary  of  higher  studies  in  our  dioceses  shall 
fail  to  imbue  its  students  with  the  pure  doctrine  of 
St.  Thomas ;  and  we  thank  you,  Most  Holy  Father, 
for  your  vindication  of  the  great  Doctor  of  the 
Church,  and  for  your  efforts  to  promote  the  true 
progress  of  all  science." 

Father  Beckx,  the  head  of  the  Jesuits,  in  solemn 
audience,  announced  the  thanks  and  obedience  of 
his  order. 

This  high  appreciation  of  the  writings  of  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  on  the  part  of  Leo  XIII.,  was  no 
new  thing.  As  Archbishop  of  Perugia,  in  1 872,  he  had 
established  for  the  study  of  the  works  of  the  Angelic 
Doctor,  an  Academy  which  published  a  series  of 
scientific  transactions.  Immediately  after  the  En- 
cyclical was  published,  by  writing  addressed  to 
Cardinal  de  Lucca,  dated  October  15,  1879,  ne 
founded  a  similar  institution  in  Rome  and  directed 
the  publication  of  a  new  edition  of  the  writings  of 
St.  Thomas.  In  all  of  his  later  writings,  no  chance  to 
praise  St.  Thomas  is  omitted. 

Great  as  were  these  compliments  which  the  infal- 
lible Papacy  at  its  first  opportunity  showered  upon 
the  Angel  of  the  Schools,  they  were  not  undeserved  ; 
for,  as  this  book  will  endeavor  to  show,  it  was  he  who 
six  centuries  ago  forged  the  weapons  by  which  the 
victory  for  infallibility  was  won  and  by  which  the 


i8 

Papacy  hopes  in  the  future  to  gain  universal  empire. 
Whence  had  the  Pope  his  admiration  for  the  Angelic 
Dcotor  ? 

As  the  learned  Jesuit,  Father  Harper,  says  in  his 
"  Metaphysics  of  the  School  "  (Introduction,  p. 
LXX.) :  "  But  I  may  not  omit  a  special  reference  to 
that  Order  to  which  I  belong — the  Society  of  Jesus. 
It  tells  its  members,  and  particularly  its  professors 
of  Scholastic  Theology,  that  '  Ours  are  to  follow 
entirely  in  Scholastic  Theology  the  teaching  of  St. 
Thomas,  and  to  consider  him  as  their  own  Doctor  ; 
and  they  are  to  use  their  utmost  exertions  to  render 
those  that  follow  their  lectures  as  well  disposed  to- 
wards him  as  possible.'  ....  He  who  has  charge 
and  supreme  supervision  in  these  matters  is  thus  ad- 
monished :  '  Let  him  above  all  things  bear  in  mind, 
that  those  who  are  not  well  affected  towards  St. 
Thomas  are  not  to  be  promoted  to  the  chairs  of 
Theology  ;  and  that  they  who  are  adverse  to  him,  or 
are  even  not  sufficiently  given  to  the  study  of  him, 
are  to  be  debarred  from  the  office  of  teaching.' " 

According  to  Father  Talbot  ("  Leo  XIIL,"  p.  187), 
"  the  '  Spiritual  Exercises '  of  St.  Ignatius  is  so  pene- 
trated with  the  Thomistic  tradition  that  we  may  say 
that  without  the  Summa  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible." 

As  Leo  XIII.  was  educated  by  the  Jesuits,  first  at 
Viterbo  and  then  at  the  Collegio  Romano  in  Rome 
(McCarthy's  "  Pope  Leo  XIII.,"  p.  26),  and  was  after- 
wards ordained  in  a  Jesuit  church  (an  honor  said  to 
be  reserved  for  members  of  that  order  only),  his 
glorification  of  St.  Thomas  was  but  the  act  of  a 


19 

docile  pupil  of  Ignatius  Loyola.  By  Brief  of  July 
13,  1886,  he  confirmed  to  the  Society  of  Jesus  all 
their  powers  and  privileges,  praising  them  particu- 
larly for  spreading  the  theological  and  philosophical 
discipline  of  the  Angelic  Doctor. 

As  Leo  XIII.  himself  declares  in  his  Encyclical 
above  mentioned :  "  It  is  admitted  that  nearly  all 
the  founders  and  lawgivers  of  the  religious  orders 
have  directed  their  subjects  to  study,  and  most  con- 
scientiously, the  doctrines  of  St.  Thomas,  and  with 
this  warning,  that  no  one  depart  with  impunity  one 
tittle  from  the  footsteps  of  so  great  a  man.  To 
omit  the  Dominican  Family,  who  glory  in  this  great 
master  as  by  right  their  own,  we  find  that  Benedic- 
tines, Carmelites,  Augustinians,  the  Society  of  Jesus 
and  many  other  Holy  Orders  are  bound  by  this 
law  as  their  statutes  prove."  Nothing  can  exceed 
the  adulation  which  the  Roman  Catholic  writers 
apply  to  him  ;  Plassman,  the  learned  professor  in  the 
college  in  Rome,  says  ("  Philosophy,"  vol.  I.,  p.  29), 
"He  is  the  finger  of  God,"  and  on  page  18  id.  he 
asks :  "  Is  it  exaggerated  to  say  that  to  defend  St. 
Thomas  means  to  defend  the  Church  ?  "  All  of  the 
biographers  of  the  Aquinate  tell  of  the  appearance 
of  our  Saviour  to  him  with  the  words :  "  Bene  dixisti 
de  me,  Thoma  /"  of  course,  none  of  the  writings  of  the 
Bible  could  have  a  stronger  confirmation. 

How  highly  Cardinal  Vaughan  appreciates  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  is  shown  by  the  following  extract 
from  his  "  Life  "  (page  347) : 

"  And  in  fact  the  ruling  minds  at  Trent  were  those 
which  had  been  molded  by  the  great  principles 


20 

embedded  in  the  Summa.  The  spirit  of  St.  Thomas 
lived  in  its  Sessions  and  seems  to  have  formulated  its 
Decrees.  .  .  .  On  the  table  of  the  Council  were 
placed  conspicuously  three  books :  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, the  Decrees  of  the  Popes  and  the  Summa 
Theologica  of  S.  Thomas." 

Cardinal  Gibbons,  in  "  Our  Christian  Heritage," 
says  in  a  manner  equally  emphatic : 

"  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  was,  perhaps,  the  most  pro- 
found thinker  the  world  has  produced  since  the 
dawn  of  Christianity.  His  vast  mind  ranges  over 
the  entire  field  of  philosophy  and  theology." 

But  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  turn  lays  little  claim 
to  originality  ;  he  continually  appeals  to  "  the  Phil- 
osopher," under  which  title  the  mediaeval  Avorld 
always  understood  Aristotle,  as  furnishing  the  phil- 
osophical groundwork  to  which  the  teachings  of 
the  Bible  must  be  applied.  To  understand  the 
Aquinate,  and  in  turn  Leo  XIII.,  it  is,  therefore, 
necessary  to  begin  with  a  study  of  Aristotle,  and 
in  order  to  fully  appreciate  the  latest  teachings  of 
the  Roman  Pontiff  we  must  often  turn  to  the  Prince 
of  Philosophers. 

As  Harper  in  his  "  Metaphysics  of  the  School  " 
(Introduction,  p.  LXXII.)  says:  "I  ought  not  to 
omit  another  characteristic  of  St.  Thomas — his 
admiration  and  (it  is  not  too  much  to  say)  his  rever- 
ence for  Aristotle  as  a  philosopher.  His  moral 
Theology — to  repeat  what  I  have  said  before — is 
built  upon  the  Ethics  of  the  great  Stagyrite  ;  just  as 
the  morality  of  the  Gospel  is  based  on  the  natural 
Law.  He  rarely,  if  ever,  determines  a  problem  in 


21 

philosophy  without  summoning  the  authority  of  the 
Greek  Philosopher  to  his  support ;  and  whenever  he 
quotes  him,  it  is  always  by  the  distinctive  title  of  tJie 

Philosopher They  stand  absolutely  alone  ; 

the  one  the  giant  of  the  old  world,  the  other  the 
giant  of  the  new." 

As  Dr.  Plassman  says  in  his  first  volume  (above 
cited),  p.  175  :  "  She  (Aristotelian  Philosophy)  could 
not  be  separated  from  the  Summa  Theologize  and 
the  Summa  Contra  Gentiles  of  St.  Thomas.  Where 
the  theology  of  St.  Thomas  rules,  there  rules  also 
the  philosophy  of  the  Peripatetic  School." 

Without  attempting  here  to  enter  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  the  merits  of  this  particular  philosophy,  no 
reader  of  Roman  Catholic  controversial  literature 
can  have  failed  to  note  the  great  advantage  which 
familiarity  with  this  philosophical  system — extend- 
ing as  it  does  from  the  mistiest  metaphysics  to  the 
most  practical  questions  of  to  day — gives  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  theologian  in  presenting  his  side  of 
the  case,  even  when  it  is  intrinsically  weak. 

The  fact  that  the  successors  of  the  original  re- 
formers of  the  sixteenth  century  have  had  compar- 
atively so  little  influence  in  continuing  the  conver- 
sion of  Roman  Catholics  to  Protestantism,  is  probably 
largely  due  to  the  ignorance  of  these  successors  of 
scholastic  philosophy. 

To  appreciate  the  persistence  and  continuity 
of  scholastic  teaching  we  need  only  remember 
that  the  race  of  schoolmen  originated  in  the  schools 
established  by  the  Roman  Emperors  to  prepare 
men,  fit  for  the  service  of  the  Roman  State.  With 


22 

the  fall  of  the  Empire,  the  control  of  these  schools 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Church,  and  men 
were  educated  then  to  become  fit  for  the  service 
of  the  Roman  Church.  The  decrees  of  the  Codex 
Thedosianus  (Lib.  XEV.,  tit.  9),  with  its  provisions 
for  full  reports  to  the  Emperor  on  each  individual 
student,  for  the  universal  study  of  Latin  as  the 
medium  of  communication,  etc.,  present  a  curious 
parallel  to  the  rules  prevalent  in  the  Jesuit  schools 
of  to-day,  the  object  of  the  one  having"  been  the 
maintenance  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  object 
of  the  other  the  maintenance  of  its  successor,  the 
Roman  Church.  See  Hampden  on  the  Scholastic 
Philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

From  such  schooling  independent  thought  was  of 
course  not  to  be  expected  ;  they  were  trained  to 
defend  what  the  Church  taught ;  they  may  well  be 
described  as  the  intellectual  Praetorean  Guards  of 
the  Papacy.  Archbishop  Trench,  in  his  Mediaeval 
Church  History,  says : 

(P.  273.)  "  The  true  hearted  in  every  Christian 
land  were  yearning  more  and  more  after  a  Reforma- 
tion of  the  Church  in  its  head  and  in  its  members. 
But  the  Schoolmen  were  not  Reformers ;  they  were 
and  always  had  been  defenders  of  that  which  was. 
.  .  .  There  was  nothing  which,  if  it  formed  part 
of  the  Church's  accepted  system,  they  had  not  at 
all  times  shown  themselves  ready  to  defend  ;  the 
most  baseless  pretentions,  the  grossest  superstition, 
the  abuse  which  was  the  mushroom  growth  of  yes- 
terday equally  with  the  truth  which^had  been  once 
delivered  to  the  saints.  Thetwithdrawal  of  the  cup 


23 

from  the  laity ;  transubstantiation,  simony  if  prac- 
ticed by  a  Pope ;  purgatory  ;  indulgences  ;  the 
burning  of  heretics  .  .  .  they  found  reasons,  and 
in  some  sort  of  fashion,  Scripture  for  all." 

Nevertheless,  every  one  who  would  understand 
modern  philosophy  ought  to  familiarize  himself 
with  the  scholastic  system.  It  is  impossible  to 
understand  Des  Cartes  and  his  followers,  if  we 
have  no  idea  of  the  school  in  which  they  were 
brought  up,  or  of  the  errors  which  they  intended  to 
combat.  Without  understanding  Des  Cartes,  it  is  in 
turn  impossible  to  understand  the  philosophers  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  of  to-day  ;  without  a 
satisfactory  philosophy,  it  is  impossible  for  a  thought- 
ful man  to  arrive  at  definite  conclusions  on  the  most 
essential  points  of  his  own  religion  or  to  convince 
any,  except  the  most  superficial,  of  its  truth.  As 
our  country  becomes  old  enough  to  produce  a 
leisure  class,  many  will  be  found  who  will  not  rest 
content  without  at  least  attempting  to  solve  the  great 
riddles  of  our  being  which  have  attracted  the  strong 
minds  of  all  ages.  The  study  of  Roman  Catholic 
philosophy,  therefore,  even  if  we  cannot  agree  with 
it,  will  at  least  make  us  appreciate  the  necessity  for 
some  philosophy  and  the  utter  inadequacy  of  our 
Protestant  teaching  in  this  respect. 

Moreover,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  not  the 
only  one  which  is  infected  with  the  philosophy  of 
the  heathen  Aristotle  ;  none  of  the  churches,  founded 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  are  free 
from  it,  although  in  some  respects,  on  this  account, 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  Geneva  be  not  nearer 
to  Rome  than  Canterbury. 


24 

The  churches  founded  in  the  eighteenth  century 
have  gone  as  far  in  the  opposite  direction,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  natural  reaction,  so  that  they,  too, 
may  ascribe  many  of  their  defects  indirectly  to 
the  Stagirite.  Hence,  if  we  would  have  Christian 
unity,  one  necessary  prerequisite  seems  to  be  an 
acquaintance  with  scholastic  philosophy,  as  illus- 
trated on  a  few  points  by  Fairbairn's  "  Unity  of  the 
Faith." 

Another  advantage  of  this  study  is  to  make  one 
appreciate  how  intelligent  Roman  Catholics  can 
honestly  love  their  church  and  work  for  its  extension 
from  pure  and  unselfish  motives.  Their  philosophy 
is  certainly  wrong,  but  it  is  a  philosophy  which 
does  not  shrink  from  the  most  difficult  and  funda- 
mental of  life's  problems,  and  therefore  compares 
favorably  with  many  superficial  and  uncertain  sys- 
tems, prevalent  among  Protestants. 

The  author  has  cited  mainly  Dr.  Plassman's  Ger- 
man works  on  the  Philosophy  of  St.  Thomas  (pub- 
lished at  Soest,  in  Germany,  1860,  by  Nasse),  which 
have  been  recommended  by  the  Rector  of  one  of  the 
largest  Roman  Catholic  parishes  in  this  City,  a 
Monsignor  of  the  Roman  Court,  as  containing  the 
best  summary  of  Thomistic  doctrine,  and  also  the 
only  English  work  on  the  subject,  entitled  "  Meta- 
physics of  the  School,"  by  the  Jesuit  Father  Harper 
(published  by  Macmillan,  but  now  out  of  print).  A 
copy  of  this  book  was  kindly  loaned  to  the  author 
by  His  Grace  Archbishop  Corrigan  of  New  York, 
to  whom  the  author  is  also  indebted  for  the  loan  of 
the  publication  containing  the  official  texts  of  the 


25 

writings  of  Leo  XIII. ,  known  as  "  Leonis  Papas 
XIII.  Allocutiones,"  published  by  Desclee,  De  Brou- 
wer  &  Co.,  Bruges,  Belgium.  The  translations  of 
the  Encyclicals  in  the  following  chapters  have  been 
taken,  as  indicated,  from  Roman  Catholic  sources, 
and  they  have  also  been  compared  with  the  official 
texts  and  found  substantially  correct.  The  Jesuit 
Stonyhurst  Series  of  books  on  Catholic  Philosophy 
(published  by  Benziger  Brothers  in  New  York, 
Cincinnati  and  Chicago)  to  which  frequent  reference 
is  also  made,  is  very  ably  written  but  is  much  more 
condensed  than  Plassman's  work.  The  Catholic  Re- 
view, which  is  frequently  cited,  is  stated  to  be  "  com- 
mended by  his  Holiness  Leo  XIII.,  the  Archbishop 
of  New  York,  the  Bishop  of  Brooklyn  and  many  other 
prelates.'' 

The  object  of  the  author  is  not  to  attempt  to  con- 
fute the  theological  teachings  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  which  are  not  directly  derived  from  scholas- 
tic philosophy,  such  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Infallibility 
of  the  Pope,  although  he  can  not  forbear  in  passing  to 
refer  any  one  in  doubt  on  this  subject  to  the  immense 
Ante-Nicene  Literature,  translated  into  English 
within  the  last  few  years-  for  the  first  time ;  it  is 
submitted  that  it  appears  from  this  plainly  enough 
that  the  few  passages  therein  contained,  concern- 
ing pre-eminence  of  the  See  of  Rome,  indicate  by 
their  context  that  it  was  a  pre-eminence  due  to 
the  fact  that  "  all  roads  lead  to  Rome,"  and  that 
hence,  in  the  days  before  the  Canon  of  the  Scrip- 
ture was  fixed,  all  traditions  were  brought  to  the 
Capitol  of  the  World  to  be  sifted,  compared  and 


26 

agreed  upon.  Neither  is  it  the  author's  intention  to 
attempt  to  set  forth  and  refute  the  scholastic 
philosophy  as  a  whole.  This  is  a  far  greater 
task  than  the  author  would  }>r  . ;.  nc  to  undertake. 

The  object  of  the  following  chapters  is  to  show 
merely  how  that  system  affects  the  State  by  grind- 
ing that  institution  between  its  theories  of  the  Church 
and  the  Workingmen's  Guild,  as  it  were  an  upper 
and  a  nether  mill-stone,  and  then  repeating  the  pro- 
cess with  its  conceptions  of  the  Family  and  the 
Individual,  until  the  State  is  reduced  to  an  institution 
intended  only  to  raise  taxes  and  execute  criminals. 
How  successful  this  movement  has  been  and  how 
important  it  promises  to  be»may  be  ascertained  by 
consulting  Nitti's  Catholic  Socialism,  or  Nippold's 
Kirchengeschicte  (volume  second),or  Lecky's  Liberty 
and  Democracy. 

The  chapter  on  the  Church  and  Science  is  added 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  fallacy  of  the  main 
theory  of  the  scholastic  physical  system,  /.  e.,  that  all 
motion  must  come  from  above, — from  beings  of  a 
higher  order  than  the  thing  moved,  -  for  it  is  by 
analogy  to  this  alleged  universal  principle  that  the 
dependence  of  the  Individual,  Family,  Guild,  and 
State  (in  short,  of  all  laymen)  upon  the  Priest-hood 
and  of  the  latter  upon  the  Papacy,  is  proved. 

The  importance  of  this  inquiry  will  be  at  once  ap- 
preciated when  we  remember  that  the  Supreme  Pon- 
tiff in  this  country  has  the  unlimited  right  of  ap- 
pointment of  all  bishops,  who  in  turn  control  the 
teachers  of  all  schools  under  Roman  Catholic  in- 
fluence, while  on  the  continent  of  Europe  the  various 


27 

Concordats  give  the  several  governments  more  or 
less  control  over  nominations  of  bishops,  pastors 
and  school  teachers. 

That  these  teachings  are  really  believed  in  by  all 
Roman  Catholic  laymen  or  even  priests,  in  spite  of 
their  proclamation  by  the  highest  authority  in  the 
Church,  is  not  so  very  probable;  those  who  were 
educated  in  former  days,  when  a  more  liberal  spirit 
prevailed,  will  give  them  at  most  only  a  formal 
assent.  But  enough  time  has  now  elapsed  since  the 
proclamation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Infallibility  and 
of  the  main  principles  of  the  teachings  of  Leo  XIII.  to 
allow  a  new  generation,  which  has  been  brought 
up  on  these  doctrines,  to  grow  up  and  enter  our 
schools  as  teachers,  and  the  question  becomes  now 
an  important  one,  if  these  principles  are  dangerous 
to  our  modern  civilization,  will  Roman  Catholic 
schools  make  good  citizens  ? 

"  Who  has  the  schools,  has  the  future." 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    CHURCH    AND  THE  STATE. 

According  to  recent  statements  of  the  press,  large 
numbers  of  our  citizens  are  enrolling  themselves  in 
an  organization,  the  object  of  which  is  to  exclude 
Roman  Catholics  from  public  offices.  The  fact  that 
the  Roman  Catholic  press  is  teeming  with  denuncia- 
tions of  the  order,  makes  it  very  probable  that  the 
movement  is  a  large  and  growing  one.  A  recent 
article  in  the  most  conservative  of  Roman  Catholic 
magazines  urged  its  readers  to  leave  one  and  join  the 
other  of  the  two  great  political  parties,  and  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  in  an  open  letter  (published  in  the  Catholic 
Review  for  May  23,  1896),  has  threatened  that  all 
Roman  Catholics  will  take  this  course,  unless  oppo- 
sition to  them,  as  such,  ceases.  This  suggestion  has 
already  been  followed  by  the  institution  of  the 
Order  of  Catholic  Americans,  with  the  object  of 
questioning  all  candidates  as  to  their  opinions 
concerning  the  right  of  Roman  Catholics  to  hold 
public  office. 

According  to  the  published  statement  of  the 
leader  of  one  of  the  great  political  parties  in  this 
State,  the  recent  murder  at  the  election  in  Troy  was 
due  to  a  feud  which  grew  out  of  this  antagonism. 
In  many  cities  the  municipal  elections  were  conducted 
avowedly  on  these  lines,  especially  where  the  choice 
of  officials  having  charge  of  public  education,  was 


29 

involved ;  in  some  States,  the  nominations  for  State 
officers  are  made  with  reference  to  this  issue,  and  a 
presidential  candidate  has  been  denounced  on  ac- 
count of  his  alleged  friendliness  to  Roman  Catholics 
in  politics. 

Has  this  Anti- Roman  Catholic  movement  any  jus- 
tification ?  Is  it  destined  to  spread  and  grow  ?  Or, 
is  it  merely  a  revival  of  the  old  Know-nothing 
spirit,  which  will  shortly  disappear  on  account  of 
its  own  folly  ? 

According  to  the  statement  of  Roman  Catholics, 
there  was  never  a  time  when  such  an  attack  had  less 
excuse.  Leo  XIII.  is  represented  as  being  favorably 
inclined  to  the  modern  liberal  spirit ;  in  France  he 
has  declared  himself  in  favor  of  a  republic,  and 
broken  off  the  long-standing  alliance  between  the 
Papacy  and  the  royal  factions ;  in  our  country  his 
Ablegate  has  consorted  mainly  with  the  priests  who 
represent  the  liberal  American  tendency  in  the 
Church,  and  his  Holiness  has  expressed  himself  as 
well  pleased  with  the  course  of  his  representative. 

What,  then,  have  the  enemies  of  this  Church  to 
complain  of  at  this  time  ? 

Has  anything  happened  since  the  Know-nothing 
party  was  laid  to  rest  in  its  forgotten  grave  ? 

Is  all  this  show  of  liberalism  of  the  present  Pontiff 
and  his  accredited  representative  a  false  pretense 
and  a  blind,  intended  merely  to  cover  up  designs  upon 
our  national  institutions,  so  dangerous  as  to  require 
citizens  to  drop  their  former  party  affiliations  and 
range  themselves  in  opposition  to  every  candidate  for 
public  office,  who  holds  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  ? 


Let  us  glance  at  the  principal  events  in  the  history 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  since  the  days  of  the  Know- 
nothing  party. 

At  that  time  Roman  Catholics  could  cite  the 
Declaration  in  1826  of  the  Vicars  Apostolic  who 
with  Episcopal  authority  governed  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  Great  Britain,  as  follows  : 

"  The  allegiance  which  Catholics  hold  to  be  due 
and  are  bound  to  pay  to  their  Sovereign,  and  to 
the  civil  authority  of  the  State  is  perfect  and  un- 
divided. 

"  They  declare  that  neither  the  Pope,  nor  any  other 
prelate  or  ecclesiastical  person  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  ....  has  any  right  to  interfere, 
directly  or  indirectly,  with  civil  government,  .  .  . 
nor  to  oppose  in  any  manner  the  performance  of  the 
civil  duties  which  are  due  to  the  King." 

Moreover  there  was  the  Pastoral  Address  of 
Roman  Catholic  Hierarchy  of  the  same  year;  they 
declared  on  oath  their  belief  "  that  it  is  not  an  article 
of  the  Catholic  Faith,  neither  are  they  thereby  re- 
quired to  believe  that  the  Pope  is  infallible." 

In  this  country,  they  could  also  point  to  Keenan's 
Doctrinal  Catechism,  approved  by  Bishop  Hughes, 
which  contains  the  following  (p.  305):  "  What  if  a 
General  Council  or  Papal  Consistory  should  under- 
take to  depose  a  king,  or  absolve  his  subjects  from 
their  obedience  ? 

'  'Answer  :  No  Catholic  is  bound  to  submit  to  such 
a  decree.  Indeed  every  Catholic  may  renounce 
upon  oath  any  such  doctrine,  and  this  without  the 
least  breach  of  Catholic  principle. 


31 

"  Question :  Mu^t  not  Catholics  believe  the  Pope 
in  himself  to  be  infallible  ? 

"Answer :  This  is  a  Protestant  invention,  it  is  no 
article  of  the  Catholic  faith." 

Pius  IX.,  as  above  set  forth,  published  no  positive 
plan  on  the  general  subject  of  the  relation  of  Church 
and  State  ;  the  Syllabus  of  Errors  being  merely  a 
negation  of  certain  doctrines,  and,  moreover  of 
uncertain  authority.  Has  Leo  XIII.,  the  omnipotent 
superintendent  of  Roman  Catholic  schools,  advanced 
or  receded  from  the  position  of  the  Irish  Bishops  and 
Bishop  Hughes  ? 

In  the  first  place,  what  are  the  teachings  on  the 
relation  of  Church  and  State  of  the  Angel  qf  the 
Schools,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  whom  Leo  XIII.,  as 
above  set  forth,  has  lauded  so  highly,  and  whose 
doctrines,  according  to  his  directions,  all  Roman 
Catholic  teachers  are  "  to  gently  instill  into  the 
minds  of  their  pupils  "  ? 

In  the  passage  from  the  Encyclical  above  cited,  in 
which  St.  Thomas  is  extolled  as  offering  great  safe- 
guards to  the  modern  Family  and  State,  particular 
mention  is  made  of  his  treatise  "on the  fatherly,  just 
government  of  sovereign  princes." 

The  treatise  "  De  regimine  principum  "  is  evidently 
intended ;  what  are  its  teachings  concerning  the 
science  of  government,  and  particularly  on  the  rela- 
tions of  Church  and  State  ? 

After  setting  forth  the  advantages  which  render 
a  monarchy  the  most  desirable  form  of  government 
("  since  states  which  are  not  ruled  by  one,  labor  under 
dissentions  and  are  tossed  about  without  peace  ") 


32 

he  proceeds  in  Chapter  XIV.  of  the  First  Book  to 
state  the  relation  of  Church  and  State  as  follows : 

"  If  indeed  men  could  attain  this  end  (heaven)  by 
human  nature,  it  would  be  necessary  that  it  should 
be  the  king's  duty  to  guide  men  towards  this 

end A  government  is  higher  in 

proportion  to  its  aim But  since 

man  attains  the  end  of  divine  enjoyment  not 
by  human  but  by  divine  virtue,  to  guide  toward 
that  end  will  be  the  duty  not  of  human  but  of  divine 
government.  Therefore  the  administration  of  this 
government,  in  order  that  spiritual  matters  should 
be  distinct  from  earthly  matters,  is  committed  not  to 
earthly  kings  but  to  priests,  and  especially  to  the 
highest  priest,  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  the  vicar 
of  Christ,  the  Roman  Pontiff,  to  whom  all  kings  of 
the  Christian  people  should  be  subject  as  to  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  himself.  For  thus  those  who  direct 
towards  inferior  ends  should  be  subject  to  him  who 
directs  to  the  ultimate  end.  .  .  .  Hence  in  the 
law  of  Christ,  kings  shall  be  subjects  to  priests." 

In  Chapter  X.  of  the  Third  Book,  he  treats  of  the 
rank  of  dignitaries  as  follows  :  "  If  then  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  is  so  called  (priest  and  king)  as  Augustine 
proves  (7  de  Civit.  Dei)  it  does  not  appear  incon- 
gruous so  to  call  his  successor  .  .  .In  the 
Supreme  Pontiff  is  all  grace,  for  he  alone  confers  full 
indulgence  for  all  sins  .  .  .  This  cannot  be  re- 
ferred merely  to  spiritual,  because  the  corporal  and 
temporal  depend  from  the  spiritual  and  eternal, 
as  the  operation  of  the  body  from  the  virtue  of  the  soul. 
As,  therefore,  the  body  has  through  the  soul,  virtue 


33 

• 

and  movement,  as  appears  from  the  words  of  the 
Philosopher  (Aristotle)  and  Augustine  on  the  Im- 
mortality of  the  Soul,  so  the  temporal  jurisdiction  of 
princes  depends  on  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  of  Peter 
and  his  successor.  Which  argument,  indeed,  we  can 
assume  from  those  things  which  we  find  in  the 
writings  and  deeds  of  the  Supreme  Pontiffs  and  of  the 
Emperors,  because  they  (the  Emperors)  yielded  to 
the  latter  in  temporal  jurisdiction.  First,  this  ap- 
pears, indeed,  concerning  Constantine,  who  yielded 
to  Sylvester  in  the  Government  .  .  .  But 
from  the  deposition  of  princes,  made  by  apostolic 
authority,  sufficiently  appears  their  (the  Popes') 
power.  First,  indeed,  we  find  this  power  to  have  been 
exercised  by  Zacharia  over  the  King  of  the  Franks, 
since  he  deposed  him  from  the  throne  and  absolved 
all  his  barons  from  the  oath  of  fidelity. 
The  same  we  find  concerning  Innocent  III.  who 
took  the  empire  from  Otto  IV.  And  the  same  hap- 
pened to  Frederick  II." 

These  teachings  are  repeated  in  the  most  cele- 
brated work  of  St.  Thomas,  the  "  SummaTheologiae." 

Thus  he  says  in  Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  10,  a.  11  :  "  Hu- 
man government  is  derived  from  divine  and  should 
imitate  it ;  "  and  again  in  Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  60,  a.  6 : 
"  For  the  temporal  power  is  subject  to  the  spiritual  as 
the  body  to  the  soul,  therefore  it  is  not  a  usurpation  of 
jurisdiction  if  a  spiritual  prelate  intrude  himself  into 
temporal  affairs  ;  "  and  again  in  Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  96,  a. 
4 :  "  And  such  laws  (which  are  opposed  to  the  divine 
law)  should  in  no  way  be  observed." 

Assuming  that  the  foregoing  extracts  show  suffi- 


34 

ciently  the  teachings  of  St.  Thomas,  on  the  manner  in 
which  Roman  Catholics  should  regard  the  relations  of 
the  Church  to  the  State,  let  us  consider  a  few  pas- 
sages which  throw  light  upon  the  manner  in  which 
they  should  treat  their  fellow  citizens  of  other 
religious  beliefs. 

Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  1 1,  a.  3  :  "  Heresy  is  a  sin  on  the 
part  of  heretics  for  which  they  deserve  not  only  to 
be  separated  from  the  Church  by  excommunication, 
but  also  to  br-  killed  .  .  .  Although  heretics  on 
account  of  their  sin  are  not  to  be  endured,  yet  until 
their  second  relapse  from  the  faith  one  should  wait,  in 
order  that  they  may  return  to  the  faith  ;  but  they  who 
after  a  second  relapse  remain  obstinate  in  their  error, 
are  not  only  to  be  excommunicated,  but  also  handed 
over  to  the  secular  princes  to  be  exterminated." 

Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  39,  a.  4 :  "A  schismatic  commits  a 
double  sin.  First  because  he  separates  himselt  from 
communion  with  members  of  the  Church,  and  for 
this  the  proper  punishment  of  schismatics  is  that 
they  should  be  excommunicated  ;  secondly,  because 
they  refuse  to  be  subject  to  the  head  ot  the  Church, 
and  therefore  because  they  will  not  be  coerced  by 
the  spiritual  power  of  the  Church,  it  is  just  that 
they  should  be  coerced  by  the  temporal  power." 

Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  10,  a.  8:  "And  therefore 
heretics  are  to  be  compelled  to  remain  in  the 
faith No  one  of  us  wishes  any  here- 
tics to  perish.  But  the  House  of  David  did  not 
deserve  peace  unless  Absalom  his  son  was  killed  in 
the  war  which  he  was  carrying  on  against  his  father. 
So  the  Catholic  Church,  if  by  the  destruction  of 


35 

some  it  collects  others,  heals  the  sorrow  of  its  moth- 
erly heart  by  the  liberation  of  so  many  people."  The 
last  sentence  is  in  answer  to  the  objection :  "  In 
Ezekiel,  Chapter  18,  it  is  said  from  God:  I  desire 
not  the  death  of  a  sinner.  But  we  should  conform 
our  will  to  the  divine.  Therefore  we  ought  not  to 
wish  that  infidels  be  killed." 

Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  10,  a.  9 :  "  The  Church  under  pun- 
ishment, forbids  the  faithful  to  have  intercourse  with 
infidels,  who  deviate  from  the  received  faith,  either 
by  corrupting  it,  as  heretics  do,  or  by  completely 
leaving  it  as  apostates  do." 

Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  10,  a.  10:  "  Infidels  are  not  to  as- 
sume government  or  leadership  of  the  faithful ;  this 
would  be  a  danger  and  scandal  to  the  faith  ;  but  if 
such  governments  exist  they  may  be  endured  to 
avoid  scandal.  .  .  .  But  such  rule  can  justly  by 
the  sentence  or  decree  of  the  Church  be  ended  ;  be- 
cause infidels  on  account  of  their  infidelity  worthily 
deserve  to  lose  their  power  over  the  faithful,  who 
are  the  sons  of  God." 

Summa  II.,  II.,  q.  10,  a.  u  :  "  Because  the  Jews  ob- 
serve rites  in  which  the  truth  of  the  faith  is  pre- 
dicted, their  worship  is  to  be  tolerated.  .  .  .  The 
rites  of  infidels  which  contribute  something  of  use  or 
truth  to  the  faithful  are  to  be  tolerated ;  but  other 
rites  are  in  no  manner*  to  be  tolerated,  except  to 
avoid  scandal." 

The  fate  of  our  Hebrew  fellow  citizens,  however, 
is  not  altogether  a  happy  one,  as  appears  from  the 
following  extract  from  a  letter  of  the  Angelic  Doctor 
to  the  Duchess  of  Brabant : 


36 

"  In  the  first  place  your  Excellency  inquires 
whether  it  is  lawful  at  any  time,  and  if  so  at  what 
time,  to  make  exactions  from  the  Jews.  To  which 
question,  so  absolutely  proposed,  one  can  reply  that, 
as  the  laws  teach,  the  Jews  on  account  of  their  sin 
are  liable  to  perpetual  servitude  and  their  terrestrial 
lords  can  take  the  property  of  the  Jews  as  their  own ; 
but  in  this,  moderation  should  be  observed  so  that 
the  necessaries  of  life  should  not  be  taken  from 
them.  .  .  .  Lastly  you  inquire  whether  through- 
out your  Province  Jews  should  wear  a  sign  by 
which  they  could  be  distinguished  from  Christians. 
To  which  the  plain  answer  is  that  according  to  a 
statute  of  a  General  Council,  Jews  of  either  sex  in 
all  Christian  lands  and  in  all  times  ought  to  be  dis- 
tinguished by  some  dress  from  the  rest  of  the  people." 

Many  Roman  Catholics  will  of  course  say  that  these 
doctrines  of  Thomas  Aquinas  are  antiquated  and 
that  they  no  longer  are  applicable,  in  this  nineteenth 
century.  Let  us  consider  them  in  turn  and  see  if 
they  have  not  been  in  principle  reaffirmed  in  our  day. 

To  begin  with  the  claim  of  St.  Thomas  that 
Popes  can  depose  princes :  Pius  IX.  expressly  recog- 
nized the  right  of  the  Popes  so  to  do,  in  his  address 
to  the  Academy  of  the  Catholic  Religion,  July  20, 
1871  (Discorsi  del  Sommo  Pontifici  Pio  IX.,  p.  203)  : 
"  Among  the  other  errors,  the  most  malicious  is  that 
which  would  attribute  to  it  (the  doctrine  of  infalli- 
bility) the  right  to  depose  sovereigns  and  free  a 
people  from  its  oath  of  fidelity.  This  right,  without 
doubt,  has  at  some  times  in  extreme  circumstances 
been  exercised  by  the  sovereign  Pontiffs,  but  this 


37 

has  nothing  to  do  with  Papal  infallibility.  Nor  is  its 
source  the  infallibility,  but  .  .  .  the  Pontifical 
authority" 

In  this  declaration,  the  late  Pontiff  was  only  fol- 
lowing the  leading  Roman  Catholic  publicist  of  this 
century,  De  Maistre,  who  in  his  "  Du  Pape  "  (page 
176)  declares:  "The  Sovereign  Pontiff  in  freeing 
subjects  from  their  oath  of  allegiance  would  do 
nothing  against  the  divine  law." 

Let  us  next  consider  the  last  extract  from  the  opin- 
ions of  St.  Thomas,  showing  his  antipathy  to  the 
Hebrews.  That  this  spirit  is  not  dead  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  the  Anti-Semitic  party  in  Austria  is  in 
fact  a  Roman  Catholic  party  and  receives  its  name 
only  from  its  first  demand,  i.  e.,  the  restriction  of 
Hebrew  enterprise  by  special  laws. 

The  following  recent  incident  in  the  Austrian 
Reichsrath  is  characteristic  of  the  movement  and 
the  statements  of  Dr.  Lueger  have  not  been  denied 
by  papal  authorities,  although  ample  time  to  do  so 
has  elapsed. 

"One  of  the  members,  Herr  Noske,  said  that 
there  were  priests  in  Vienna  who  preached  from 
the  pulpit,  exciting  the  people  against  their  Jewish 
fellow  citizens.  A  poor  woman  living  in  the  country 
had  adopted  a  foundling  from  Vienna,  who  happened 
to  be  a  Jew.  She  informed  the  parish  priest  of  the 
circumstance,  and  was  roundly  abused  by  him  for 
bringing  a  Jew  to  the  locality.  The  child  subse- 
quently died.  The  priest  refused  to  bury  it  in  the 
graveyard.  It  was  consequently  interred  in  a  field, 
and  only  transferred  to  the  graveyard  through  the 


38 

intervention  of  the  authorities.  Herr  Noske  asked 
when  some  Primate  of  the  church  would  raise  his 
voice  against  such  practices  and  preach  that  religion 
which  taught  men  to  love  their  neighbors  as  them- 
selves. He  reminded  the  House  that  the  Prime 
Minister  had  recently  affirmed  the  government  to  be 
of  the  opinion  that  true  Christianity  demanded  toler- 
ance. Herr  Lueger,  in  response,  declared  that  not 
a  single  bishop  would  be  found  to  condemn  the 
Anti-Semites.  He  said  :  '  We  are  proud  to  say  that 
our  movement  has  revived  religious  feeling  in 
Vienna.  .  .  .  If  a  bishop  could  be  found  to  approve 
of  your  party  and  to  oppose  the  efforts  of  the  Chris 
tians,  such  an  ecclesiastic  would  be  capable  of  cruci- 
fying our  Lord  a  second  time ;  he  would  be  perpe- 
trating the  blackest  crime  against  religion,  and 
would  be  doing  what  the  Pope  must  condemn.  You 
may  rest  assured  that  the  Holy  Father  in  Rome  is 
well  enough  informed  as  to  the  situation  in  Vienna 
to  know  on  which  side  are  the  friends  of  the  Cath- 
olic religion.  We  are  quite  reassured  on  that  score, 
and  are  sure  of  the  Pope.  We  know  that  he  will 
not  desert  us  in  the  holy  war  which  we  are  carrying 
on  in  Vienna  and  in  Austria  generally.'  " 

Since  this  event,  Dr.  Lueger  has  been  elected 
again  to  the  Burgomastership  of  Vienna,  as.  the 
Anti-Semetic  Candidate — a  movement  which  the 
Catholic  Review  of  May  16,  1896,  declares  to  be 
"  largely  recruited  from  the  Catholic  party."  See 
also  to  the  same  affect  the  chapter  in  Professor 
Nitti's  "  Catholic  Socialism,"  entitled  "  Antisemitism 
and  Catholic  Socialism  in  Austria." 


39 

Evidence  that  the  persecuting  spirit  of  the  Church 
in  general  still  survives  is  given  by  the  manner  in 
which  Leo  XIII.  has  condemned  the  Freemasons  to 
suffer  temporal  punishments  for  their  beliefs.  In 
his  Encyclical  "  Humanum  genus  "  (cited  in  "  Pope 
Leo  XII L,"  compiled  by  Rev.  James  F.  Talbot, 
D.D.,  of  the  Cathedral  of  the  Holy  Cross,  Boston, 
Mass  ,  and  printed  by  Martin  Garrison  &  Co.,  Bos- 
ton, 1886),  the  Holy  Father  says:  "  The  first  to  de- 
nounce this  danger  (Freemasonry)  was  Clement 
XII.,  in  the  year  1738  ;  and  his  Constitution  was  con- 
firmed and  renewed  by  Benedict  XIV.;  Pius  VII. 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  these  Pontiffs  ;  and  Leo 
XII.  in  his  Apostolic  Constitution  Quo  graviora, 
collecting  the  acts  and  decrees  on  this  subject  of  the 
Popes  who  had  gone  before  him,  ratified  and  con- 
firmed them  for  all  time.  Pius  VIII.,  Gregory  XVI. 
and,  on  many  occasions,  Pius  IX.  have  spoken  in  the 
same  sense.  .  .  .  Therefore,  whatever  the  Roman 
Pontiffs,  our  predecessors,  have  decreed  for  hindering 
the  undertakings  and  attempts  of  the  sect  of  the  Free- 
masons ;  whatsoever  they  have  sanctioned,  either 
for  the  purpose  of  deterring  men  from,  or  calling 
them  back  after  they  have  entered  those  societies, — 
all  these,  each  and  every  one,  we  hereby  notify,  and 
with  our  apostolic  authority  confirm  ;  in  which,  in- 
deed, trusting  especially  to  the  good  will  of  Chris- 
tian people,  we  beg  each  by  his  own  salvation  that 
they  will  make  it  a  matter  of  conscience  not  in  the 
smallest  way  to  depart  from  the  previous  commands 
of  apostolic  authority  in  this  matter." 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  Apostolic 


40 

Constitution  of  Leo  XII.,  "  Quo  graviora,"  confirmed 
by  Leo  XIII.,  as  above  stated  :  "  Moreover,  we  will 
and  command  that  all  bishops,  prelates,  superiors 
and  inquisitors  of  heresy  give  information  and  pro- 
ceed against  said  transgressors  of  whatever  estate, 
condition,  rank  or  dignity  they  may  be,  that  they  re- 
press and  punish  them  with  merited  punishments 
as  strongly  suspected  of  heresy  ;  for  we  give  to  them 
and  each  of  them,  the  free  power  to  inform  and  pro- 
ceed against  said  transgressors,  to  repress  and  punish 
them  with  the  merited  punishments,  in  invoking 
even  for  this  purpose  the  help  of  the  secular  arm." 
We  see  therefore  that  Leo  XIII.  begs  all  Christian 
people  "  each  by  his  own  salvation  that  they  will 
make  it  a  matter  of  conscience  "  to  proceed  against 
all  Freemasons,  "  invoking  even  for  this  purpose  the 
secular  arm." 

By  consulting  the  Encyclical  on  Freemasonry, 
it  will  also  be  found  that  Freemasons  are  con- 
demned for  the  reason  that  they  form  a  part  of 
the  sect  of  Naturalists,  who  are  thus  described  :  "  It 
is  the  first  principle  of  those  who  call  themselves 
Naturalists,  since  by  their  very  name  they  declare  it, 
that  human  nature  and  human  reason  should  be  in 
all  things  the  teacher  and  ruler ;  and  this  laid  down, 
they  either  pay  less  attention  to  duties  towards  God. 
or  they  pervert  them  by  indefinite  and  erroneous 
opinions.  For  they  deny  that  any  thing  has  been 
revealed  to  us  by  God  Himself  ;  they  admit  no  dog- 
mas of  religion — that  nothing  is  true  but  what 
human  intelligence  can  understand  ;  that  there  is  no 
teacher  whom  we  are  to  believe  on  account  of  the 
authority  of  his  office." 


41 

In  his  Encyclical  on  Human  Liberty,  dated  June  20, 
1888,  all  men  who  call  themselves  Liberals  in  politics 
are  expressly  condemned  as  belonging  to  this  school  of 
Naturalists.  It  follows  therefore  logically  that  all  who 
advocate  these  "  liberal  principles  ".of  the  Naturalists, 
ought  also  to  be  handed  over  to  "  the  secular  arm." 

How  welcome  are  converts  driven  into  the  Church 
for  fear  of  "  the  secular  arm."  See  "  Armenia  and 
the  Powers  "  in  the  Contemporary  Review  of  May, 
1896,  and  Nippold's  "  Handbuch  der  Neuesten 
Kirchengeschichte "  (published  by  Wiegandt  and 
Schotte,  Berlin,  1890),  second  volume,  p.  225. 

How  wide  should  be  the  separation  which  is  to 
exist  between  Roman  Catholics  and  their  fellow  citi- 
zens, even  in  this  country,  is  shown  by  the  following 
command  of  Leo  XIII.,  published  during  the  past 
year,  with  especial  reference  to  circumstances  in 
America.  The  wide  scope  of  this  prohibition  will  be 
better  understood  when  we  consider  how  broad  a 
field  the  term  "  correct  morals''  covers  in  Roman 
Catholic  phraseology  ;  it  is  held  to  embrace  all  inten- 
tional human  acts,  as  will  be  shown  below  in  this 
chapter,  and  as  has  been  already  indicated  in  the 
above  cited  Encyclical  to  the  Belgian  Bishops,  in 
which  the  Social  Question  is  declared  to  fall  under 
the  head  of  "  religion  and  morals," — the  very  two 
terms  used  in  the  following  letter: 

"  We  have  learned  that  in  the  United  States  con- 
ventions are  sometimes  held  in  which  people  assem- 
ble promiscuously,  Catholics  as  well  as  those  of  other 
denominations,  to  treat  upon  religious  subjects  as 
well  as  npon  correct  morals.  In  this  we  recognize  the 
desire  for  religious  things  by  which  this  people  is 


42 

animated  more  zealously  from  day  to  day,  but  al- 
though these  promiscuous  conventions  have  unto 
this  day  been  tolerated  with  prudent  silence,  it  would 
nevertheless  seem  more  advisable  that  the  Catholics 
should  hold  their  conventions  separately ;  and  that, 
lest  the  utility  of  these  conventions  should  result 
simply  to  their  own  benefit,  they  might  be  called 
with  the  understanding  that  the  admittance  should 
be  open  to  all,  including  those  who  are  outside  of  the 
Church."  It  follows,  therefore,  that  consistent 
Roman  Catholics  should  attend  no  meeting  for 
benevolent,  social  or  polilical  purposes,  which  is  not 
called  and  managed  exclusively  by  Roman  Catholics, 
although  others  may  be  admitted. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  claimed,  in  spite  of  the  forego- 
ing evidence  of  modern  intolerance,  that  the  infallible 
head  of  the  Roman  Church  was  ignorant  of  these  pas- 
sages in  the  writings  of  the  Angelic  Doctor  as  to  the 
relation  of  Church  and  State ;  but  this  would  be, 
firstly,  a  grave  reflection  upon  the  theological  educa- 
tion of  his  Holiness ;  how  important  a  knowledge  of 
scholastic  literature  is  deemed  in  the  church  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  one  of  the  propositions  condemned 
by  Pius  IX.  in  his  Syllabus  of  Errors  was  that  "  the 
methods  and  principles  by  which  the  old  Scholastic 
Doctors  cultivated  theology  are  no  longer  suitable  to 
the  demands  of  the  age  and  the  progress  of  science," 
and  every  one  admits  that  Leo  XIII.  is  probably 
one  of  the  best  read  ecclesiastics  in  his  Church. 

Moreover,  if  we  look  at  the  Encyclicals  of  Leo 
XIII.  we  find  that  as  becomes  a  faithful  scholar 
of  the  Jesuits,  they  breathe  the  very  spirit  of  St. 
Thomas,  and  that  when  speaking  of  the  relation 


43 

of  Church  and  State  he  takes  his  figures  of  speech 
literally  from  that  author.  It  may  here  be  noted 
that  the  obedience  to  God,  to  which  his  Holiness 
so  often  refers,  will  be  shown  in  a  later  part  of 
this  chapter  and  in  chapter  fourth,  to  mean  obedi- 
ence to  the  Pontifex  Maximus. 

In  the  opening  sentence  of  the  Encyclical  last 
above  cited,  he  announces  that  Christ  "  left  the 
Church  which  He  had  founded  as  the  supreme  ruler 
of  all  people."  This  idea  is  developed  in  the  Ency- 
clical on  the  Christian  Constitution  of  States,  begin- 
ning with  the  words,  "  Immortale  Dei  "  (translated 
from  Latin  Text  of  the  "  Osservatore  Romano  "  by 
Rev.  T.  F.  Mahar,  D.  D.,  Catholic  Universe  Pub- 
lishing Co.,  Cleveland,  Ohio) : 

"  This  society  (the  Church),  though  consisting  of 
men,  like  civil  society,  nevertheless  on  account  of 
its  aim  and  the  means  which  it  uses  for  its  purpose, 
is  supernatural  and  spiritual  and,  therefore,  it  is  dis- 
tinct and  different  from  civil  society,  and  what  is  of 
very  great  moment,  is  a  perfect  society  in  kind  and 
in  law,  since  it  possesses  of  itself  by  the  will  and 
benefit  of  its  founder,  all  the  aids  necessary  to  its 
security  and  its  action.  Since  the  aim  of  the 
Church  is  by  far  the  noblest,  so  its  power  is  of  all 
the  highest,  and  can  never  be  considered  inferior  to 
civil  authority,  or  in  any  way  subject  to  it.  In  truth 
Jesus  Christ  gave  to  his  Apostles  free  mandate  as  to 
sacred  things,  adding  the  power  of  making  laws  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word  and  the  consequent  two- 
fold power  of  judging  and  of  punishing.  The 
leader  of  men  to  heavenly  things  is  not  the  State 


44 

but  the  Church,  and  to  her  the  charge  has  been  as- 
signed, by  God,  that  she  should  look  to  and  decree 
in  those  things  that  concern  religion ;  that  she 
should  teach  all  nations  ;  that  she  should  extend  the 
bounds  of  Christianity  as  far  as  possible,  in  short 
that  she  should  administer  all  Christianity  freely  and 
readily  according  to  her  own  judgment.  This  au- 
thority, absolute  in  itself  and  plainly  independent, 
which  has  long  been  denied  by  the  philosophy  that 
flatters  princes,  the  Church  has  never  ceased  to  as- 
sert for  herself  and  also  to  publicly  exercise,  first  of 
all  the  Apostles  themselves  asserting  it,  who,  when 
forbidden  by  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue  to  spread 
the  Gospel,  answered  with  constancy,  '  We  ought 
to  obey  God  rather  than  men.'  The  Holy  Fathers 
of  the  Church  according  to  opportunity  labored  to 
establish  by  arguments  this  same  power,  and 
the  Roman  Pontiffs,  with  unconquerable  constancy, 
never  failed  to  vindicate  it  for  themselves  against 
opponents.  Still  more,  princes  themselves  and 
Governors  of  States  approved  this  power  by  words 
and  by  deeds,  by  compacts,  by  transaction  of  affairs, 
by  sending  and  receiving  ambassadors  and  thus 
acting  with  the  Church  as  with  a  supreme  lawful 
power.  Nor  surely  is  it  to  be  held  that  it  was  with- 
out a  special  providence  of  God  that  this  same 
power  was  made  secure  by  a  civil  princedom  as  the 
best  assurance  of  its  liberty. 

"  Therefore  God  has  divided  the  guidance  of  the 
human  race  between  two  powers,  the  ecclesiastical 
and  the  civil,  the  one  looking  to  divine  and  the 
other  to  human  affairs.  Each  is  greatest  of  its  kind  ; 


45 

each  has  certain  bounds  determined  by  the  nature 
and  proximate  cause  of  each,  whence  a  circle,  as  it 
were,  is  drawn  in  which  each  may  lawfully  act. 
But  since  the  power  of  both  is  over  the  same  per- 
sons and  hence  it  may  happen  that  one  and  the 
same  thing  may  come,  although  in  different  ways, 
under  the  law  and  judgment  of  both,  a  God  of 
supreme  providence,  who  is  the  author  of  both, 
must  have  accurately  and  harmoniously  traced  the 
course  of  both.  '  Those  that  are,  are  ordained  of 
God.'  Were  it  not  so,  causes  of  destructive  conten- 
tion and  strife  would  often  arise  and  man  would 
frequently  have  to  stop  in  doubt  and  hesitancy  like 
one  with  two  roads  before  him,  anxious  as  to  what 
he  should  do  in  the  presence  of  two  conflicting  au- 
thorities, neither  of  which  can  be  conscientiously 
rejected.  Such  a  condition  is  in  the  highest  degree 
repugnant  to  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God  who 
even  in  the  physical  world,  though  it  is  of  far  in- 
ferior rank,  nevertheless  has  so  disposed  and  har- 
monized natural  powers  and  causes  that  one  is  not  an 
obstacle  to  another,  and  all  fittingly  and  accurately 
combine  to  attain  the  purpose  of  the  universe. 
There  must  be,  therefore,  a  harmony  between  the 
two  powers  and  it  is  not  unduly  compared  to  the  union 
between  the  body  and  soul  in  man.  Its  character  and 
extent  cannot  be  judged  except  by  considering,  as 
we  have  said,  the  nature  of  both  and  taking  into  ac- 
count the  excellency  and  nobility  of  their  purposes ; 
one  having  as  immediate  and  chief  aim  the  benefits  of 
mortal  things,  and  the  other  aiming  to  provide 
heavenly  and  eternal  blessings." 


46 

The  same  figure  of  speech  is  used  in  the  Encyclical 
De  Libertate  Humana,  dated  June  20,  1888  (Leonis 
Papae  Allocutiones,  vol.  III.,  p. 96) :  "And  the  concord 
(of  civil  and  religious  government)  not  inaptly  has 
been  compared  to  that  which  exists  between  soul 
and  body,  for  the  benefit  of  both ;  the  division  of 
which  is  especially  injurious  to  the  body,  whose  life 
is  thereby  extinguished." 

It  will  be  noted  that  after  following  the  same  line 
of  argument  about  the  division  of  the  guidance  of 
the  human  race  between  the  Church  and  State, 
the  figure  which  Leo  XIII.  and  Aquinas  both 
employ  to  express  the  relation  of  Church  and 
State  is  that  of  the  soul  and  the  body.  The  nature 
of  this  relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  not  an 
open  question  to  Roman  Catholics :  the  Ecumen- 
ical Council  of  Vienne  (1311)  declared  (Plassmann's 
Psychology,  p.  207) :  "  Quod  quisquis  deinceps 
asserere,  defendere  seu  tenere  pertinaciter  praesum- 
serit,  quod  anima  rationalis  seu  intellectiva  non  sit 
forma  humani  corporis  per  se  et  essentia'liter,  tan- 
quam  hereticus  sit  censendus "  (that  whosoever 
shall  presume  to  assert,  defend  or  pertinaciously  to 
hold  that  the  rational  or  intellectual  soul  is  not  by 
itself  and  essentially  the  form  of  the  human  body,  is 
to  be  considered  a  heretic).  This  doctrine  is  re- 
peated in  the  Fifth  Council  of  the  Lateran  (1512). 
We  see  therefore  that  it  has  been  dogmatically  de- 
clared that  the  soul  is  the  form  of  the  body.  The 
same  doctrine  has  been  repeated  in  the  Aposto*lic 
Letters  of  "Pope  Pius  IX.  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Cologne,  in  which  the  Pontiff,  condemning  the  errors 
of  Guenther,  declares  it  to  be  Catholic  doctrine  that 


47 

the  rational  soul  in  man  is  the  true,  per  se  and  imme- 
diate form  of  the  body  ;  see  Liberatore  on  Univer- 
sals  (translated  by  Bering),  page  108. 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas  develops  this  theory  at  length 
in  his  Contra  Gentiles  (Lib.  II.,  Cap.  LVII.),  following, 
of  course,  his  master  Aristotle  (De  Anima,  II.,  Ch.  2)r 
who  had  declared  that  the  soul  was  that  by  which  man 
lives,  feels,  perceives,  wills,  moves,  and  understands. 

Now,  what  does  it  mean  to  be  the  form  of  a  body,, 
according  to  Roman  Catholic  psj^chology  ? 

St.  Thomas's  teachings -on  this  subject  are  shown 
by  the  following  -extracts  from  his  writings :. 
Summa  I.,  q.  78  a.  i  :  "  For  the  whole  bodily  na- 
ture is  subject  to  the  soul,  and  stands  to  it  in  the: 
nature  of  matter  and  instrument." — IVologus  in 
12  libros  Metaphysicorum  Aristotelis :  "When 
several  parts  are  united  it  is  necessary  that  one 
of  them  should  be  the  regulator  or  ruler,  and  the 
other  the  regulated  or  ruled.  This  also  appears  in 
the  union  of  soul  and  body.  For  the  soul  naturally 
commands  and  the  body  obeys."  Summa  1.,  q.  76,  a.  I  : 
"  But  it  must  be  considered  that  as  the  form  becomes 
nobler  so  much  the  more  it  dominates  the  corporal 
substance  .  .  .  the  human  soul  is  the  noblest  of 
forms."  Summa  I.,  II.  q.  58  a.  2  :  "  The  soul  rules  the 
body  with  a  despotic  government  as  a  master  rules 
a  slave  who  has  no  right  of  contradiction."  Aris- 
totle had  taught  the  same  in  his  Ethics  (Book  8,  ch. 
13),  where  he  declares  that  the  relation  of  a  tyrant, 
not  a  king,  to  his  subject,  or  an  artisan  to  his  tool,  to 
be  the  same  as  that  of  the  soul  to  the  body.  In 
modern  Roman  Catholic  philosophies  this  teaching 


48 

is,  of  course,  repeated,  as  in  Dr.'Plassmann's  Psy- 
chology (p.  228),  where  it  appears  how  broad  and 
important  this  doctrine  is  to  the  whole  scholastic 
or  Aristotelian  theory :  "  In  every  living  being, 
even  when  it  unites  all  kinds  of  life, — as  is  the  case  in 
man, — there  is  only  one  soul.  This  single  soul  per- 
forms all  acts  of  life,  whether  it  be  vegetable,  sensi- 
tive or  rational." 

Ignatius  Loyola  had  evidently  the  same  illustra- 
tion in  view  which  Aristotle  used,  as  above  cited, 
when  he  declared  that  his  followers  must  be  as  ready 
to  fulfill  the  will  of  their  superiors  as  a  stick  or  a 
corpse  in  the  hands  of  a  man ;  and  Dr.  Bellinger,  in 
his  "  History,"  while  still  a  Roman  Catholic,  used 
this  comparison  of  the  relation  of  Church  and  State 
to  that  existing  between  the  soul  and  the  body  to 
sum  up  the  most  extreme  claims  of  the  mediaeval 
Papacy  as  declared  in  the  bull  of  Boniface  VIII., 
known  as  "  Unam  sanctam." 

Dr.  Dollinger's  statement  is  as  follows  (IV.  p.  91): 
"  In  the  Church,  it  (the  Bull  '  Unum  sanctam  ') 
says,  there  are  two  powers,  a  temporal  and  spiritual, 
and  as  far  as  they  are  both  in  the  Church  they  have 
both  the  same  end ;  the  temporal,  the  inferior,  is 
subject  to  the  spiritual,  the  higher  and  more  noble; 
the  former  must  be  guided  and  directed  by  the  latter 
as  the  body  is  by  the  soul;  it  receives  from  the  spiritual 
its  consecration  and  its  direction  to  its  highest  object, 
and  must,  therefore,  should  it  ever  depart  from  its 
destined  path,  be  corrected  by  the  spiritual  power. 
It  is  a  truth  of  faith  that  all  men,  even  kings,  are 
subject  to  the  Pope." 


49 

We  see,  therefore,  that  any  student  acquainted 
with  the  first  principles  of  Roman  Catholic  dogma  and 
philosophy  would  at  once  understand  the  declara- 
tion of  Leo  XIII.  that  Church  and  State  are  related 
to  each  other  as  soul  and  body ;  it  means  that  tne 
Church  is  all  powerful,  and  that  the  State  exists  and 
moves  only  thanks  to  the  Church,  and  that  one's 
duty  as  a  member  of  the  State  is  to  be  as  completely 
subservient  to  the  representatives  of  the  Church  as 
a  member  of  the  Jesuit  Order  is  to  his  superiors, 
i.  e.,  as  a  stick  or  a  corpse  in  the  hand  of  a  man. 

The  student  of  St.  Thomas  would,  moreover,  be 
expressly  taught  the  passage  above  cited,  from  his 
De  Regimine  Principum  (Lib.  III.,  Cap.  X.):  "As, 
therefore,  the  body  has  through  the  soul,  virtue  and 
movement,  as  appears  from  the  words  of  the  phi- 
losopher (Aristotle)  and  Augustine  on  the  Immor- 
tality of  the  Soul,  so  the  temporal  jurisdiction  of 
princes  depends  on  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  of  Peter 
and  his  successor." 

Nor  has  His  Holiness  shrunk  from  using  this 
authority  to  lay  under  the  ban  as  frankly  as  Pius 
IX.  did,  all  that  modern  civilization  holds  most 
dear,  as  appears  by  the  following  extracts  from  the 
Encyclical  Immortale  Dei  (above  cited): 

"  But  those  pernicious  and  deplorable  revolution- 
ary tendencies  which  were  aroused  in  the  i6th  cen- 
tury, when  they  had  once  introduced  confusion  into 
Christianity,  and  soon*  by  a  natural  course  entered 
the  domain  of  philosophy  and  from  philosophy  into 
all  the  lines  of  civil  society.  From  this  source  are 
to  be  traced  the  more  recent  declarations  of  unbri- 


50 

died  liberty,  invented  during  the  great  upheavals  of 
the  last  century  and  laid  down  as  the  principles  and 
fundamentals  of  the  new  law,  which  was  before  un- 
known and  is  at  variance  on  more  than  one  score 
not  only  with  Christianity,  but  even  with  the  law  of 
nature.  Of  those  principles  the  chief  is  that  all 
men,  as  they  are  of  one  species,  are  also  really  equal 
in  practical  life  ;  that  every  man  is  so  far  independ- 
ent as  to  be  subject  in  no  way  to  the  authority  of 
another  ;  that  he  is  free  to  think  as  he  pleases,  to  act 
as  he  pleases  ;  that  the  right  of  governing  resides  in 
no  person.  In  a  society  thus  constituted,  there  is 
no  princedom  except  the  will  of  the  people  ;  the 
people  are  in  their  own  hands  and  alone  rule  them- 
selves ;  they  select  persons  to  whom  they  entrust 
themselves,  in  such  manner,  however,  as  not  to 
transfer  the  right  to  rule,  but  merely  a  charge  to  be 
exercised  in  their  name.  Divine  control  is  ignored, 
as  if  there  were  no  God  at  all,  or  he  were  nowise  solic- 
itous concerning  human  society  ;  or  as  if  men  individ- 
ually or  united  together  in  society  owed  nothing  to 
God,  or  as  if  any  princedom  could  be  imagined 
whose  cause,  force  and  authority  did  not  reside  en- 
tirely in  God.  In  this  way  the  State  is  nothing  but 
the  multitude,  mistress  and  ruler  of  itself,  and  since 
the  people  is  declared  as  holding  within  itself  the 
source  of  all  rights  and  all  power,  it  follows  that  the 
State  should  consider  itself  bound  by  no  manner  of 
duty  to  God  ;  that  it  should  profess  publicly  no  re- 
ligion ;  that  it  should  not  seek  out  of  many  that 
which  alone  is  true,  nor  prefer  a  certain  one  to  the 
rest,  nor  favor  one  principally,  but  to  give  to  each 


an  equality  before  the  law  with  the  limit  that  public 
order  be  not  disturbed.  It  is  in  harmony  with  this 
to  leave  all  questions  of  religion  to  the  judgment  of 
each  individual ;  to  permit  every  one  to  follow  such 
as  he  pleases,  or  none  at  all  if  he  accept  none. 
Hence  surely  arise,  a  conscience  without  law  to 
determine  its  decision,  freedom  of  opinion  as  to  the 
worship  of  God,  or  not  worshiping  Him  ;  a  boundless 
license  of  thought  and  of  the  press. 

"  Having  once  laid  down  these  tenets,  which  in  our 
time  are  highly  approved,  as  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  State,  it  easily  appears  into  what  and 
how  iniquitous  a  position  the  Church  is  forced. 
For  when  the  conduct  of  affairs  is  in  accordance 
with  these  doctrines  Catholicity  is  placed  on  an  equal 
footing  in  the  State  with  associations  foreign  to  her, 
or  even  on  an  inferior  footing  ;  no  account  is  taken  of 
ecclesiastical  laws  ;  the  Church  which  ought,  accord- 
ing to  the  command  and  mandate  of  Jesus  Christ,  to 
teach  all  nations,  is  commanded  not  to  affect  the 
public  character  of  the  people.  Those  things  which 
enter  into  both  ecclesiastical  and  civil  law  are  legis- 
lated upon  by  the  civil  rulers  according  to  their  own 
judgment,  and  they  disregard  in  these  matters  the 
most  sacred  laws  of  the  Chureh.  Wherefore  juris- 
diction is  usurped  over  Christian  marriage,  even  the 
marriage  bond,  the  unity,  the  permanency  of  mar- 
riage becoming  the  subject  of  civil  determination  ; 
the  possessions  of  the  clergy  are  disturbed,  the 
Church  being  denied  the  right  of  holding  property. 
To  sum  up  the  whole  matter,  they  act  towards  the 
Church  as  if  having  divested  her  of  the  character  of 


52 

a  society  perfect  in  kind  and  law,  she  were  consid- 
ered precisely  the  same  as  other  associations  which 
the  State  contains  ;  and  for  this  reason  whatever 
right  she  possesses,  whatever  liberty  of  action  she 
possesses,  she  is  declared  to  hold  by  the  concession 
and  beneficence  of  the  civil  rulers. 

"  In  view  of  these  dangers,  no  doubt,  is  left  as  to 
the  duty  of  Roman  Catholics.  .  .  . 

"  Therefore  in  the  difficult  course  of  affairs  which 
is  pursued,  Catholics,  if  they  will  listen  to  us  as  they 
ought,  will  easily  see  what  are  their  duties,  both  as 
to  opinions  and  as  to  deeds.  As  to  forming  opinions, 
whatever  the  Roman  Pontiffs  have  taught  or  shall 
teach  must  all  receive  a  firm  assent  and  be  openly 
professed  when  occasion  demands  it.  And  especially 
as  to  modern  liberties  Catholics  must  abide  by  the 
judgment  of  the  Apostolic  See  and  each  and  every 
one  hold  what  it  holds.  Experience  has  sufficiently 
taught  their  effect  upon  the  State  ;  they  have  every- 
where  produced  results  that  are  a  just  cause  of  grief 
to  the  virtuous  and  wise  .  .  .  Wherefore  it  is 
clear  that  Catholics  have  just  reason  to  enter  into 
political  life  ;  for  they  do  not  enter  it,  nor  ought  they 
to  enter  it,  for  the  purpose  of  sanctioning  what  in 
our  times  is  vicious  in  the  character  of  public  affairs; 
but  for  the  purpose  of  turning  this  very  character  as 
far  as  possible  into  honest  and  genuine  public  profit, 
having  in  mind  the  purpose  of  introducing  the 
wholesome  life-bAood  of  Catholic  wisdom  and  virtue 
into  the  whole  system  of  the  State.  .  .  -,  All 
Catholics  who  are  worthy  of  the  name  must  first  of 
all  be  and  wish  to  appear  most  affectionate  children 


53 

of  the  Church ;  reject  unhesitatingly  whatever  is 
inconsistent  with  that  encomium  ;  use  popular  insti- 
tutions as  far  as  virtue  permits,  for  the  protection  of 
truth  and  justice;  see  that  liberty  of  action  does  not 
pass  beyond  the  bounds  fixed  by  the  law  of  nature 
and  of  God  ;  work  to  the  end  that  every  state  be 
made  conformable  to  the  Christian  model  we  have 
described.  The  manner  of  obtaining  these  things 
cannot  be  determined  by  one  fixed  rule,  since  the 
method  must  be  suitable  to  times  and  places  which 
are  very  diverse.  Nevertheless  harmony  of  deter- 
mination must  first  of  all  be  preserved,  and  unity  of 
work  be  sought.  Both  will  be  easily  obtained  if 
everybody  will  consider  the  prescriptions  of  the 
Apostolic  See  as  his  law  of  life,  and  will  obey  the 
Bishops  whom  the  "  the  Holy  Ghost  has  placed  to 
rule  the  Church  of  God  ".  .  .  .  Likewise  that  it 
it  is  not  lawful  to  follow  one  rule  in  private  life,  an- 
other in  public  life,  namely,  so  that  the  authority  of 
the  Church  may  be  observed  in  private  life,  dis- 
regarded in  public  life."  To  the  same  effect,  see  the 
Encyclicals  of  June  2oth,  1888,  and  Jan.  loth,  1890. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  how  the  main  prin- 
ciples of  our  Declaration  of  Independence  and  of  the 
Bills  of  Rights,  incorporated  into  our  National,  as 
well  as  our  various  State  Constitutions,  are  directly 
negatived  by  the  foregoing  declarations,  as  emphat- 
ically as  they  were  in  the  Syllabus  of  Errors  of 
Pius  IX.;  see  Hoffman's  Sphere  of  the  State. 

But  popular  government,  free  speech,  etc.,  de- 
nounced in  this  Encyclical,  are  by  no  means  the 
only  claims  of  modern  liberal  states  which  are  de- 


54 

clared  null  and  void  by  the  Infallible  Papacy,  since 
the  very  right  to  enact  laws  as  a  sovereign  power, 
without  the  consent  of  the  Church,  is  denied  to  the 
State. 

To  prove  this  from  the  Encyclical  denouncing 
Socialism  and  Communism,  we  cite  only  one  sen- 
tence :  "  But  if  the  ordinances  of  legislators  and 
princes  sanction  or  command  what  is  contrary  to 
the  divine  or  the  natural  law,  then  the  dignity  of 
the  Christian  name,  our  duty  and  the  Apostolic 
precept,  proclaim  that  we  must  obey  God  rather 
than  man."  This  principle  is  elaborated  in  the  En- 
cyclical of  Jan.  loth,  1890. 

How  much  is  covered  by  the  expression  "  the 
divine  law  "  is  seen  by  turning  again  to  the  Ency- 
clical on  the  Christian  Constitution  of  States : 
"  Whatsoever,  therefore,  in  human  affairs  is  in  any 
manner  sacred  ;  whatsoever  pertains  to  the  salvation 
of  souls,  or  the  worship  of  God,  whether  it  be  so  in 
its  own  nature,  or  o.i  the  other  hand,  is  held  to  be 
so  for  the  sake  of  the  end  to  which  it  is  referred — 
all  this  is  in  the  power  and  subject  to  the  free  dis- 
position of  the  Church." 

This  passage  has  been  taken  for  their  chief  au- 
thority by  the  Bishops  of  Quebec  on  the  Manitoba 
school  question  in  their  "  United  Declaration " 
(Catholic  Review,  June  13,  1896): 

"  If  the  bishops,  whose  authority  springs  from  God 
Himself,  are  the  natural  judges  of  a  question  which 
involves  the  Christian  faith,  religion  and  morality, 
if  they  are  the  recognized  chiefs  of  a  society,  per- 
iect,  sovereign,  superior  by  its  nature  and  by  its  end 


55 

to  civil  society,  it  belongs  to  them,  when  circum- 
stances demand,  not  only  to  express  their  views 
and  desires  in  all  matters  of  religion,  but  also  to 
point  out  to  the  faithful,  or  to  approve  the  proper 
means  to  arrive  at  the  spiritual  end  which  they  pro- 
pose to  reach.  This  doctrine  is  that  of  the  great 
Pope  Leo  XIII.,  in  his  encyclical  Immortale  Dei : — 
'  All  that  which  in  human  things  is  sacred  by  any 
title  whatever,  all  that  which  touches  the  safety  of 
souls  and  worship  of  God,  either  by  its  nature  or 
by  relation  to  its  aim,  all  that  is  under  the  authority 
of  the  Church.' 

"  We  must  briefly  recall  these  principles,  inherent 
in  the  very  constitution  of  the  Church ;  these  es- 
sential rights  of  religious  authority,  in  order  to 
justify  the  attitude  taken  by  the  members  of  the 
hierarchy  in  the  present  school  question  and  to  make 
better  understood  the  obligations  of  the  faithful  to 
follow  episcopal  directions. 

"  Please  remark,  our  dearly  beloved  brethren,  that 
a  Catholic  is  not  permitted,  let  him  be  a  journalist, 
elector,  candidate  or  member,  to  have  two  lines  of 
conduct  in  a  religious  point  of  view,  one  for  private 
life  and  one  for  public  life,  and  to  trample  under 
his  feet  in  the  exercise  of  duties  not  social  the 
obligations  imposed  on  him  by  his  title  of  a  sub- 
mitted son  of  the  Church.  Therefore  all  Catholics 
should  only  vote  for  candidates  who  will  formally 
and  solemnly  engage  themselves  to  vote  in  Parlia- 
ment in  favor  of  the  legislation  giving  to  the  Catho- 
lics of  Manitoba  the  school  laws  which  were  rec- 
ognized to  them  by  the  Privy  Council  of  England. 


56 

This  grave  duty  imposes  itself  on  all  good  Catholics, 
and  you  would  not  be  justifiable  either  before  your 
spiritual  guides  or  before  God  Himself  to  set  aside 
this  obligation." 

Having  thus  seen  how  large  a  field  is  exempt  from 
the  authority  of  the  State,  on  account  of  its  falling 
within  the  province  of  the  "  divine  law,"  let  us 
next  inquire  what  is  embraced  by  the  term  "  natural 
law,"  which  according  to  the  Encyclical  against 
Socialism,  above  cited,  is  equally  out  of  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  State. 

According  to  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  natural 
law  embraces  all  human  law  as  shown  by  the  fol- 
lowing quotations  : 

(Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  91  a  3) :  "  Besides  the  divine  and 
natural  law,  there  is  a  certain  human  law  found  by 
man,  according  to  which  those  things  which  are 
found  in  natural  law  are  particularly  ordered." 
(Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  95  a  2) :  "  W  hether  all  human  law  is 
derived  from  natural  law.  ...  I  reply  that 
one  must  say  that,  as  Augustine  says  in  I.  de  lib.  arb. 
that  that  does  not  appear  to  be  law  which  is  un- 
just; and  as  far  as  it  has  justice,  so  far  it  has  the 
strength  of  law  ;  but  in  human  matters  a  thing  is 
said  to  be  just  because  it  agrees  with  a  rule  of  rea 
son.  But  the  first  rule  of  reason  is  the  law  of  nature, 
as  has  been  above  shown  ;  hence  all  law  humanly  en- 
acted has  so  much  force  as  it  is  derived  from  the  law 
of  nature.  If,  therefore,  in  anything  it  disagrees 
with  the  law  of  nature,  it  will  not  be  law,  but  a  cor- 
ruption of  law.'* 

(Summa  I.,  II.,  q."  95  a  4) :  "  It  is  first  from  the  es- 


sence  of  human  law,  that  it  is  derived  from  the  law 
of  nature ;  as  appears  from  what  has  been  said  and 
according1  to  this,  positive  law  is  divided  into  law  of 
nations  (jus  gentium)  and  civil  law  (jus  civile)  accord- 
ing to  the  two  modes  by  which  anything  is  derived 
from  the  law  of  nature,  as  has  been  said  above.  For 
to  the  law  of  nations  pertain  those  things  which  are 
derived  from  the  law  of  nature,  as  conclusions  from 
principles,  as  that  purchases  and  sales  must  be  just 
and  other  things  of  this  kind,  without  which  men 
could  not  live  together,  which  is  according  to  the 
law  of  nature  since  man  is  naturally  a  social  animal, 
as  is  shown  in  the  first  book  of  (Aristotle's)  Politics. 
Those  things  truly  which  are  derived  from  the  law 
of  nature  by  means  of  a  particular  enactment,  per- 
tain to  the  civil  law,  according  to  what  any  particu- 
lar State  may  determine  to  be  suitable  to  itself." 

(Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  96,  a.  4) :  "  Just  human  laws  bind 
men's  consciences,  by  reason  of  the  divine  law  from 
which  they  are  derived." 

(Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  94,  a.  3) :  "  Since,  according  to  St. 
Augustine  in  the  temporal  law,  nothing  is  just  or 
legitimate  which  has  not  gone  forth  from  the  divine 
law ;  it  is  certain  that  all  laws,  so  far  as  they  partake 
of  right  reason,  are  derived  from  the  divine  law." 

From  the  foregoing  citations  it  appears  that  human 
laws  are  a  part  of  both  the  divine  law  and  the  law 
of  nature,  and  more  particularly  of  the  latter ;  but 
that  they  can  effect,  not  the  general  principles  of  the 
law  of  nature  which  are  necessary  for  the  co-exist- 
ence of  civilized  men  in  states,  but  only  the  details 
developed  in  the  practical  application  of  those  prin- 


58 

ciples.  This  divine  or  natural  law,  as  a  work  of 
human  reason,  will  hereafter  be  shown  to  be  nothing 
but  the-  will  of  the  reigning  Pope.  In  matters 
entirely  independent  of  religion  or  the  care  of  souls, 
there  exists,  therefore,  for  the  Roman  Catholic  an 
unwritten  constitutional  law,  regulating  the  most 
important  principles  of  social  life,  which  legislatures 
may  not  touch — and  if  they  presume  to  do  so, 
their  statutes  are  against  reason  and  therefore  no 
laws. 

Aquinas  was  in  this  case  again  following  in  the  foot- 
steps of  "  the  Philosopher,"  although  Aristotle  states 
the  principle  rather  as  an  oratorical  subterfuge 
(Rhet.,  I.,  15,  1375,  a.  27  seq.):  "  When  you  have  no 
case  according  to  the  law  of  the  land,  appeal  to  the 
laws  of  nature  and  quote  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles, 
'  Argue  that  an  unjust  lav/  is  no  law,  etc.' " 

Little  did  "the  Philosopher "  think  what  serious 
consequences  this  thoughtless  advice  was  to  have,  in 
constituting  in  each  individual  a  court  of  appeal 
against  the  laws  of  his  own  country.  Thus  the 
famous  Jesuit  Suraez  says  (De  Legibus,  III.,  c.  19): 
"  Lex  injusta  non  est  lex." 

How  utterly  impossible  it  would  be  to  carry  on  a 
government  on  this  principle  is  shown  for  example 
in  the  chapter  on  "  Toleration  "  in  Ritchie's  "  Natural 
Rights." 

The  whole  relation  of  natural,  human  and  divine 
law  is  summed  up  by  the  present  Pontiff  himself  in 
his  Encyclical  De  Libertate  Humana,  dated  June  20, 
1888  (Leonis  Papae  XIII.,  Allocutiones,  vol.  III., 
p.  96) :  "  Therefore  it  follows  that  the  law  of  nature 


59 

is  the  same  as  the  eternal  law  placed  within  rational 
beings,  and  inclining  them  to  proper  action  and  end. 
and  it  is  the  same  as  the  eternal  reason  of  the  creator 
and  governor  of  the  world,  God.  .  .  .  What 
reason  and  the  law  of  nature  is  tor  individual  man, 
human  law  does  the  same  for  man  associated  for  the 
common  good  (in  states).  ...  If  therefore  any- 
thing is  sanctioned  by  authority  which  differs  from 
the  principles  of  right  reason,  and  may  be  pernicious 
to  the  state,  it  has  no  force  of  law,  since  it  would  not 
be  a  rule  of  justice  and  would  lead  men  astray,  for 
whose  good  society  was  formed/' 

The  whole  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  law  is  set 
forth  at  length  by  Father  Matteo  Liberatore,  S.  J.,a 
favorite  writer  in  the  Roman  Civilta  Cattolica,  in  his 
"  Principles  of  Political  Economy  "  (translated  by 
Edward  Herneage  Bering,  New  York,  Benziger  & 
Co.,  1891  ;  p.  i?g): 

"  From  this  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  State 
may  suppress  private  property,  and  make  itself  the 
proprietor  of  all  the  land,  on  the  plea  that  such  a 
step  is  conducive  to  the  common  good.  The 
reason  why  this  cannot  justly  be  done,  is  that 
the  right  of  property  arises  in  us  as  an  individual 
and  domestic  right,  and  therefore  as  substan- 
tially prior  to  civil  society  and  independent  of 
it ;  and  as  the  human  person  and  the  family  are 
prior  to  civil  society  and  independent  of  it. 
The  State  has  authority  over  the  rights  that 
come  from  itself.  It  has  no  authority  over 
rights  that  come  from  nature — rights  that  preceded 
the  State  in  history  and  in  reason.  .  .  .  Hence 


6o 

no  State  is  competent  to  decide  about  that  utility  ; 
and  therefore  private  property  cannot  be  abolished 
by  any  political  legislation,  even  if  all  the  States  in 
the  world,  as  States,  agreed  together  to  do  so.  Only 
by  the  Divine  Legislator  could  it  be  abolished,  or 
by  the  spontaneous  renouncement  of  it  by  all  men, 
taken  one  by  one.  If  such  abolition  were  forcibly 
imposed  by  the  State  it  would  be  a  tyrannical  viola- 
tion of  man's  rights,  and  must  as  such  meet  with  the 
reprobation  of  the  Church.  ...  In  questions  of 
right  we  must  diligently  guard  against  attributing 
too  much  power  to  the  State.  There  are  three 
things  with  respect  to  man  that  are  of  immediate  Di- 
vine institution,  and  therefore  have  laws  independ- 
ent of  the  State.  These  are  individual  personality, 
the  family  and  the  universal  society  of  all  men 
under  the  direct  but  invisible  government  of  God. 
.  .  .  And  indeed  if  the  right  to  have  property 
is  a  dictate  of  reason,  it  may  well  be  said  to  be  a  dic- 
tate of  nature ;  for  man's  reason  flows  from  his 
essence,  inasmuch  as  the  essence  of  man  is  that  of  a 
rational  animal." 

It  may  be  here  remarked  that  the  difficulty  in 
drawing  conclusions  as  to  the  details  of  this  so-called 
law  of  nature,  is  shown  for  instance  in  this  case  of 
private  property  as  to  which  Liberatore  asserts  so 
positively  that  it  antedates  the  State  ;  the  most  recent 
researches,  such  as  those  of  Charles  Letourneau,  as 
set  forth  in  his  "  Property ;  its  Origin  and  Develop- 
ment," show  that  tribal  ownership,  i.  e.,  a  species 
of  communism,  precedes  individual  ownership,  as 
marriage  to  a  whole  clan  preceded  monogamy. 


6i 

No  book  among  the  English  Roman  Catholics 
stands  higher  than  Father  Rickaby's  "  Moral 
Philosophy  or  Ethics  and  Natural  Law,"  one  of  the 
very  able  Stonyhurst  Series  of  Catholic  Philosophy  ; 
he  says,  on  page  149  :  "  No  power  in  heaven  above, 
or  on  earth  beneath,  can  dispense  from  any  portion  of 

the  natural  law (Page  299-)     Lastly  it  is 

not  true  that  all  rights,  notably  rights  of  property, 
are  the  creation  of  the  State.  A  man  is  a  man  first 
and  a  citizen  afterwards.  As  a  man  he  has  certain 
rights  actual  and  political ;  these  the  State  exists, 
not  to  create  for  they  are  prior  to  it  in  the  order  of 
nature,  but  to  determine  them  when  indeterminate, 
to  sanction  and  to  safeguard  them.  Natural  rights 
go  before  legal  rights  and  are  presupposed  to  them, 
as  the  law  of  nature  before  that  law  which  is  civil 
and  positive.  It  is  an  '  idol  of  the  tribe '  of  lawyers 
to  ignore  all  law  but  that  upon  which  their  own  pro- 
fessional action  takes  its  stand." 

Among  German  Roman  Catholic  writers,  we  would 
cite  as  undoubted  authority  Dr.  Plassman's  "  Die 
Moral,"  p.  38  :  "  Since  the  constitution  of  society  is 
framed  to  suit  moral  purposes,  it  follows  that  the 
science  of  morals  is  above  the  science  of  law.  In  re- 
gard to  law,  we  must  distinguish  positive  law,  the 
law  of  nature  and  the  eternal  law  (lex  positiva, 
naturalis  and  seterna).  The  positive  law  must  be 
founded  on  the  law  of  nature  and  this  in  turn  on  the 
eternal  law.  ...  (p.  44.)  Although  positive  law 
can  and  may  be  justified  only  as  a  part  of  the  lex 
naturalis  et  asterna,  the  chief  difference  is  diametrical, 
namely  :  quae  juris  naturae  sunt,  ideo  sunt  praecepta 


62 

quia  bona,  ideo  prohibita  quia  mala  ;  quse  vero  juris 
positivi,  ideo  bona,  quia  praeecepta,  ideo  mala,  quia 
prohibita.  .  .  .  The  object  of  this  paragraph  is 
only  to  show  why  the  whole  science  of  morals  can  be 
treated  as  the  summa  juris  naturalis." 

If  we  consult  American  writers,  we  find  the  same 
theories  in  the  Latin  work  "De  Philosophia  Morali," 
by  Father  Russo  (dedicated  to  Archbishop  Corrigan 
with  the  "  imprimatur  "  of  Father  Preston,  his  Vicar 
General)  (p.  60) :  "  Hence  you  see  that  positive  law 

derives  its  validity  from  natural  law Natural 

law  on  the  contrary  is  shown  by  a  certain  natural 

medium  which  is  the  light  of  reason Hence 

natural  law  is  the  eternal  law  as  participated  in  by  a 
rational  creature."  Cardinal  Satolli  in  his  "  Loyalty 
to  Church  and  State  "  (p.  226)  says :  "  Now  in  regard 
to  our  youths,  there  are  three  rights  which  have 
claims  on  them,  viz.,  the  right  of  nature,  the  right  of 
the  nation,  and  the  right  of  God;  that  is,  for  domes- 
tic society  under  the  rule  of  parents,  for  civil  society 
under  the  rule  of  due  authority,  and  for  the  Church 
of  Christ  under  the  sway  of  Divine  authority.  This 
last  is  of  all  societies  the  greatest  by  extent,  dignity 
and  faith." 

In  France,  Cardinal  Gousset,  in  his  "  Exposition  des 
Principes  du  Droit  Canonique  "  declares,  on  p.  14: 
"All  who  occupy  themselves  in  theory  or  in  practice 
with  questions  of  public  or  private  law  are  in  contact 
with  the  divine  and  canon  law  and  should  have  a 
knowledge  more  or  less  exact  of  the  laws  of  the 
Church.  In  Christian  societies,  one  has  always  re- 
garded the  principles  of  the  ecclesiastical  law  as  the 


basis  of  civil  law,  public  and  private The 

canon  law,  jus  canonicum,  is  called  also  the  divine 
law,  jus  sacrum,  the  ecclesiastical  law,  jus  ecclesias- 
ticum  ;  the  pontifical  law,  jus  pontificium.  This  last 
designation  is  not  less  exact  than  the  first  three  ;  be- 
sides what  it  has  in  common  with  them  to  distinguish 
the  ecclesiastical  law  from  the  civil  law,  which  is  the 
Caesarian  law,  jus  Caesareum,  it  also  perfectly  ex- 
plains the  origin  and  principal  cause,  in  indicating 
that  the  canon  law  emanates  principally  from  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  or  that  an  ecclesiastical  law  has 
no  force  except  so  far  as  it  comes  from  the  Pope  or 
is  conformed  to  the  spirit  of  a  law  sanctioned  more 
or  less  expressly  by  the  Pope." 

The  object  of  citing  these  works  of  leading  Roman 
Catholic  authorities  in  various  countries  is  to  show 
the  unanimity  with  which  they  adhere  to  the  theory 
of  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  that  this  relation  of  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  law  must  be  regarded  as  that  enunciated 
authoritatively  by  the  Church.  The  entire  civil  law 
as  embraced  within  the  natural  and  divine  law  must, 
therefore,  be  understood  to  be  claimed  by  Leo  XIII., 
in  passages  above  cited  from  the  Encyclical  denounc- 
ing Socialism,  and  the  Encyclical  on  the  Christian 
Constitution  of  States,  as  being  "  in  the  power  and 
subject  to  the  free  disposition  of  the  Church."  The 
theory  of  the  Roman  Emporers,  that  "  quod  placet 
principi  habet  legum  vigorem  "  has  therefore  been 
adopted  by  the  present  would-be  Ruler  of  the  World. 

For  the  world  in  general,  this  principle  is  explicitly 
announced  in  the  Encyclical  De  Libertate  Humana 
(above  cited) :  "  Besides,  it  is  a  most  true  duty  to 


64 

venerate  authority  and  to  be  subject  obediently  to 
just  laws.  .  .  .  But  where  the  right  to  command 
is  wanting,  or  if  anything  is  enjoined  which  is  con- 
trary to  reason,  the  eternal  law  or  the  rule  of  God, 
it  is  right  not  to  obey  men,  in  order  that  God  may 
be  obeyed." 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  Encyclical  of  January  10, 
1890,  beginning  with  the  word  "  Sapientiae  "  (above 
cited) :  "  Truly,  if  the  laws  openly  differ  from  the 
divine  law,  if  they  injure  the  church,  or  those  things 
which  concern  religion,  or  the  autliority  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  then  truly  it  is  a  duty 
to  resist,  a  crime  to  obey." 

In  the  Encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.  to  all  the  Bishops 
of  the  Catholic  world  concerning  civil  government, 
dated  June  20,  1881  (Leonis  Papae  XIII.,  Allocu- 
tiones,  vol.  L,  p.  210),  this  teaching  is  repeated: 
"  There  is  one  cause  for  which  men  should  not  obey, 
if  anything  is  demanded  from  them  which  openly  is 
opposed  to  natural  or  divine  law :  for  all  things,  in 
which  the  law  of  nature  or  of  God  is  violated,  it  is 
equally  wrong  to  command  and  to  do  ....  nor 
does  their  (rulers')  authority  then  prevail,  which 
where  there  is  not  justice,  does  not  exist." 

The  following  extract  from  "  The  Catholic  Review" 
of  February  29,  1896,  shows  how  these  principles  are 
to  be  applied  in  practical  politics : 

"  The  Reverend  Peter  Finley,  S.  J.,  delivered  an 
address  on  '  The  Church  and  Civil  Society  '  at  the 
Catholic  Club  in  Dublin  a  few  days  ago.  He  summed 
up  his  conclusions  in  these  memorable  words  :  '  First, 
The  object  which  the  Church  and  her  rulers  must 


65 

ever  have  in  view  is  the  object  which  Christ  lived 
and  died  for — a  spiritual  one,  the  salvation  of  men's 
souls.  Second,  There  are  many  matters  wholly 
spiritual — interpretation  of  Scripture,  mysteries  of 
religion,  Sacraments,  and  the  like — and  these  lie 
evidently  within  the  Church's  jurisdiction.  Third, 
There  may  be  others  which  have  no  spiritual  side, 
no  bearing  upon  faith  and  morals,  and  if  there  be 
they  are  no  wise  subject  to  the  Church's  authority. 
Fourth,  But  there  is  a  vast  multitude  of  human  ac- 
tions, which  go  to  constitute  the  life  of  civil  society, 
in  themselves  unspiritual,  without  any  direct  and 
immediate  bearing  on  the  salvation  of  the  soul — edu- 
cation, poor  law  administration,  care  of  the  sick  and 
dying,  reformation  of  the  criminal,  Parliamentary 
legislation,  exercise  of  the  poor  law,  the  municipal, 
the  Parliamentary  franchise,  and  a  thousand  others 
— which  yet  may  affect  spiritual  interests,  produce 
consequences  most  hurtful  or  most  helpful  to  souls, 
and  so  become  indirectly  spiritual,  and  subject  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Church.  Fifth,  And  whether 
any  given  action  is  of  this  nature,  an  object  of  con- 
scientious obligation,  and  so  subject  to  interference 
on  the  part  ot  Church  authority,  can  only  be  deter- 
mined by  the  Church  herself — by  the  Supreme 
Pontiff,  or  by  a  General  Council  with  supreme 
authority,  and,  therefore,  without  appeal ;  by  each 
Catholic  Bishop  in  his  own  diocese,  with  an  authority 
which  cannot  be  set  aside  by  the  State  or  by  the 
faithful,  though  it  may  be  appealed  against  to  the 
religious  authority  which  is  supreme.' ' 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  last   foregoing  citation 


66 

from  Cardinal  Satolli,  while  it  expressly  mentions  the 
rule  of  parents  for  the  Family  and  the  Divine  author- 
ity for  the  Church,  specifies  concerning  the  State 
only  that  it  is  to  be  under  <4  due  authority." 

In  view  of  such  passages  are  even  the  most 
passionate  declarations  of  so-called  liberal  Roman 
Catholics  entirely  reassuring  ?  Take  for  example 
the  following  declaration  of  the  most  patriotic  of  the 
Hierarchy,  Archbishop  Ireland,  which  was  recently 
read  in  the  United  States  Senate,  as  a  complete  proof 
of  the  loyalty  of  Roman  Catholics :  "  The  Church 
recognizes  as  her  own  sphere  faith  and  morals  ;  she 
possesses  and  claims  no  mission  in  civil  and  political 
matter.  If  the  Church  encroaches  upon  the  sphere 
of  the  State,  we  should  bid  her  away.  If  the  State 
enter  into  the  sanctuary  of  conscience,  the  proper 
empire  of  the  Church,  the  appeal  is  to  God,  and  the 
State  is  ordered  to  hold  off  its  hands.  Separation  of 
Church  and  State  revolving  freely  in  their  separate 
and  distinct  spheres — Catholics  fall  behind  none  of 
their  fellow-citizens  in  admiring  it  and  demanding 
its  continuance." 

What  are  the  limits  of  "  the  sanctuary  of  con. 
science,  the  empire  of  the  Church  "?  Has  Father 
Finley  spoken  the  truth,  in  the  last  foregoing  quota- 
tion, in  saying  that  the  Church  is  to  define  its  own 
limits  in  all  matters  relating  to  "  education,  poor  law 
administration,  care  of  the  sick  and  dying,  reforma- 
tion of  the  criminal,  Parliamentary  legislation,  exer- 
cise of  the  poor  law,  the  municipal,  the  Parliament- 
ary franchise  and  a  thousand  others  "  ?  If  so,  where 
does  Archbishop  Ireland's  loyalty  begin  ?  What 


rights  does  he  assign  to  the  Church  and  what  to  the 
State  ? 

The  folio  wing  quotation  from  the  Catholic  Review 
shows  how  in  France,  corporations  may  refuse  to  pay 
taxes  on  the  same  plea  of  conscience  : 

"  The  French  government  has  passed  a  law  taxing 
religious  orders.  Monsignor  Tirgero,  Bishop  of 
Seez,  has  addressed  an  energetic  protest  to  M. 
Ribot,  the  Premier.  Allow  me,  Monsieur  le  Min- 
istre,  to  explain  to  you  the  embarrassing  position  in 
which  I  am  placed  by  your  law.  Ought  I  to  advise 
the  religious  communities  in  my  diocese  to  offer 
resistance  or  to  be  submissive  ?  If  I  advise  resist- 
ance, it  will  be  said  that  I  have  no  respect  for  the 
law.  If  I  counsel  submission,  my  indignant  con- 
science will  cry  :  '  Anathema !  to  the  prevaricator 
of  justice,  to  the  contemasr  of  his  duty.'  You  can- 
not but  be  aware  that  the  laiv  of  the  empire  ends  where 
that  of  the  conscience  commences." 

Are  Protestants  also  to  be  allowed  to  set  up  the 
claim  for  "  the  sanctuary  of  conscience  "? 

The  following  article  from  "  Church  Progress  "  on 
the  grievances  of  Protestants  in  Peru,  Bolivia  and 
Ecuador,  where  their  public  worship  is  restricted, 
their  marriages  not  recognized,  &c.,  speaks  for  itself : 

"  The  only  real  disability  under  which  Protestant- 
ism labors  in  these  countries  is  that  it  is  not  a  legal- 
ized form  of  religion,  and  of  this  it  has  not  the 
slightest  right  to  complain.  It  forgets  that  it  is  an 
impudent  intruder  amongst  a  Catholic  population  in 
possession  of  the  entire  deposit  of  faith,  that  it  is  a 
religious  system,  both  in  method  and  in  doctrine, 


68 

odious  and  repugnant  to  the  people  of  those  coun. 
tries,  an  insult  to  their  intelligence  and  their  hearts, 
propagated  as  it  is,  as  a  reform  of  their  own  faith, 
which  the  preachers  revile  with  contempt  and  cal- 
umny. It  has  not  the  slightest  justification  for  its 
presence  here,  and  yet  is  accorded  every  toleration 
except  actual  legalization  as  a  religion  by  law  estab- 
lished." 

In  fact,  no  Roman  Catholic  ought  to  appeal  for 
anything  on  the  plea  of  conscience,  for,  as  will  be 
shown  in  the  chapter  on  the  Church  and  the  Indi- 
vidual, conscience  is  for  them  no  independent  God- 
given  guide,  but  only  a  sub-department  of  man's 
reason,  guided  by  the  Pope.  The  only  correct  posi- 
tion for  them  is  that  of  Father  Rickeby,  S.  J.,  in  his 
"  Moral  Philosophy  ":  "  But  if  the  State  is  sincerely 
convinced  that  the  convictions  openly  professed  and 
propagated  by  some  of  its  subjects  are  subversive  of 
social  order  and  public  morality,  whose  sincere  con- 
viction is  it  that  must  carry  the  day  in  practice  ?  It 
is  of  the  essence  of  government  that  the  convictions, 
sincere  or  otherwise,  of  the  governed  shall  on  certain 
practical  issues  be  waived  in  external  observance  in 
favor  of  the  convictions  of  the  ruling  power.  After 
all,  this  talk  of  conscience  and  sincere  convictions  is 
but  the  canting  phrase  of  the  day,  according  to 
which  conscience  means  mere  wild  humor  and 
headstrong  self-will  "  (page  368).  To  the  same  effect 
is  the  Encyclical  on  Human  Liberty  and  the  Letter 
to  the  Emperor  of  Brazil  by  Leo  XIII. 

These  full-blown  Roman  Catholic  doctrines  are 
taught  also  in  the  text-books  used  in  our  American 


69 

schools  and  colleges,  although  the  Latin  language  is 
expected  to  keep  them  somewhat  from  profane  eyes. 
The  whole  subject  is  summed  up  by  the  "  Elementa 
Philosophise  Moralis "  (Benziger  Brothers,  New 
York,  1886),  of  Father  Jouin,  S.  J.,  Professor  at  St. 
John's  College,  Fordham,  New  York  (p.  371):  "  The 
Church  is  a  visible  society  .  ...  it  is  independ- 
ent from  the  political  society ;  because  she  was  in- 
stituted by  God  himself,  from  whom  she  received 
proper  authority  to  order  all  things  which  pertain 
to  the  object  of  this  society  beside  those  laws  which 
were  given  by  God  himself,  and  because  her  object 
is  not  only  distinct  from  that  of  civil  society,  but  far 
excells  it.  For  this  (civil  society)  looks  only  to  the 
external  temporary  order;  but  that  (the  Church) 
looks  to  the  ultimate  object.  And  all  things  should 
be  subject  to  the  ultimate  object.  Therefore,  the 
object  of  civil  society  is  subordinate  to  that  of  the 
Church  and  not  conversely.  Therefore  it  is  impos- 
sible that  the  religious  society  or  Church  should 

depend  on  civil  society Wherefore  civil 

authority  cannot  decree  anything  which  is  contrary 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  and  it  ought  to 
watch  over  and  protect  the  rights  of  the  Church  and 
its  members,  and  if  anything  is  defined  as  evil  by  the 
Church,  that  also  it  should  hold  as  such  and  so  far 

as   possible   proscribe For   the   Church 

is  independent  of  civil  authority,  because  the  civil 
authority  did  not  receive  the  duty  of  directing  the 
minds  and  wills  of  men  to  their  ultimate  end,  and 
itself  (the  civil  authority)  is  subject  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church  in  all  things  which  concern  the  object 


;o 

of  the  Church.  Therefore  the  civil  authority  has  no 
right  to  oppose  itself  to  legislation  of  the  Church.  . 

"  The  Church  was  instituted  by  God  that  she  should 
be  the  infallible  teacher  of  truth  in  those  matters 
which  concern  faith  and  morals,  because  she  must 
direct  the  minds  and  wills  to  their  ultimate  object. 
Therefore  she  must  with  authority  teach  those  things 
which  are  to  be  believed  and  done  that  eternal  life 
may  be  obtained.  Therefore  she  ought  not  only  to 
propose  truth,  but  also  to  prevent,  so  far  as  possible, 
that  the  faithful  should  not  be  led  into  error  in  matters 

of  faith  and  morals The  Church  is  a 

spiritual  society  from  its  object,  but  it  is  composed 
not  of  spirits  but  of  men  ;  hence  external  punishments 
are  necessary.  It  is  not  necessary  that  this  punish- 
ment should  be  imprisonment,  because  there  are  also 
other  external  punishments  which  can  be  applied. 
But  in  itself  it  is  not  repugnant  that  the  Church 
should  be  able  to  decree  such  punishment.  The 
political  power  can  punish  external  crimes ;  but  it  is 
absurd  to  oblige  the  Church  always  to  recur  to  this 
power,  because  in  that  way  it  would  make  her  in  a 
certain  way  dependent  on  the  civil  power.  As  to 
the  question,  whether  the  Church  has  the  right  to 
condemn  any  one  to  death,  one  can  reply  that  the 
Church  as  a  religious  society  has  never  exercised 
this  power,  but  always  has  been  opposed  to  inflicting 

the  death  penalty But  many  approved 

authors  also  assert  that  the  Church  has  the  power  of 
inflicting  even  the  death  penalty." 

Is  not  the  teaching  of  such  doctrine  within  the 
State  of  New  York  a  justification  in  certain  cases  of 


what  our  Penal  Code  declares  to  be  false  imprison- 
ment and  murder?  No  dependence  of  these  doc- 
trines on  recognition  of  such  ecclesiastical  power  by 
the  State  appears  in  this  text-book.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  the  teaching  of  Father  Liberatore  in 
his  Chiesa  6  Stato  (p.  77)  applies,  that  wherever  the 
State  has  apostacized  "  there  arises  in  society  a  neces- 
sary disorder,  namely,  the  existence  of  a  legitimate 
power,  which  is  independent  of  the  public  deposi- 
tory of  force." 

Must  not  the  fruit  of  such  teaching  be  treason  ? 

The  source  of  this  natural  law  is  indicated  in  the 
Encyclical  on  Human  Liberty  as  follows :  "  Reason 
certainly  prescribes  to  the  will  what  to  seek  and 
what  to  avoid.  This  decree  of  reason  is  called  law. 
.  .  .  Such  is  the  beginning  of  all  natural  law, 
which  is  written  and  engraved  in  the  minds  of  all 
individual  men,  for  it  is  'human  reason  itself  which 
commands  to  do  right  and  forbids  to  do  wrong." 

As  Aquinas  says  in  Summa,  I.,  II.,  q.  95,  a.  2,  "  the 
first  rule  of  reason  is  the  law  of  nature."  This  state- 
ment will  be  found  repeated  again  and  again,  down  to 
the  Encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.  on  the  Condition  of  Labor 
(above  cited) :  "  For  laws  only  bind  when  they  are 
in  accordance  with  right  reason." 

If  law  is  then  a  work  of  human  reason  it  is  a 
human  act  and  therefore  it  follows  according  to  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  as  shown  by  the  following  quota- 
tions, that  it  is  a  moral  act  (Summa,  L,  II.,  q.  i,  a.  3), 
"  Moral  acts  and  human  acts  are  the  same." 

"  There  begins  the  rule  of  morals,  where  first  the 
rule  of  the  will  begins  "  (in  2  D.,  24,  q.  3,  a.  2). 


72 

"  Our  acts  are  to  be  called  moral,  so  far  as  they 
proceed  from  reason  and  are  free''  (Q.  2  de  Malo, 
a  6  et  passim}.  In  the  first  seventeen  questions  ol  his 
Summa,  I.,  II.,  he  treats  of  physical  acts  of  man  and 
in  the  remainder  of  that  work  he  sets  out  his  moral 
acts  which  are  all  those  of  which  good  or  bad  can  be 
predicated  (Summa,  I.,  II.,  q.  19,  a.  i  ad  3  and  id.  q.  18, 
a.  5), — or  of  which  it  can  be  said  that  they  are  guided 
by  reason.  Thus  St.  Thomas  says  in  his  Proem. 
Ethic. :  "  Morality  is  the  order  which  reason  makes  in 
human  acts  by  ordering  them  in  accordance  with  the 
rules  of  morals;"  see  Byrne's  Catholic  Doctrine  of 
Faith  and  Morals  (p.  84). 

Moreover  in  his  definition  of  moral  philosophy  he 
includes  all  intentional  human  acts,  whether  they  are 
done  by  men  as  individuals  or  as  members  of  an 
economic  group  or  members  of  the  State  ;  see  Comm. 
in  lib.  Ethic.  Arist,  lect.  i.  i.  i. :  "  Et  inde  est,  quod 
moralis  philosophia  in  tres  partes  dividatur.  Quarum 
prima  considerat  operationes  unius  hominis  ordi- 
nates  ad  finem,  quse  vocatur  monastica.  Secunda 
autem  considerat  operationes  multitudinis  domes- 
ticas,  quse  vocatur  ceconomica.  Tertia  autem  con- 
siderat operationes  multitudinis  civilis  quae  vocatur 
politica."  All  of  the  modern  leading  Roman 
Catholic  writers  on  morals  adopt  the  same  broad 
definition.  Thus  Dr.  Plassman  says  in  his  work 
on  "  Morals  "  (page  29) :  "  The  definition  of  the 
formal  object  (of  the  science  of  morals)  is  a  human 
action,  done  intentionally  with  knowledge  of  its 
consequences."  And  in  a  passage  above  cited  he 
says :  "  The  whole  science  of  morals  can  be  treated 


73 

as  the  summa  juris  naturalist  Father  Rickaby  says 
in  his  "  Moral  Philosophy  "  (p.  2) :  "  Moral  philos- 
ophy is  divided  into  ethics  and  natural  law." 

Father  Russo,  in  the  introduction  to  his  "  Moral 
Philosophy,"  above  cited,  defines  moral  philosophy 
as  "  a  practical  science  derived  from  the  principles 
of  reason,  directing  human  acts  to  honesty." 

Bearing  then  in  mind  that  every  human  act, 
guided  by  reason,  is  a  moral  act,  let  us  now  turn  to 
the  decree  of  the  last  Vatican  Council,  where  we 
find  it  to  be  declared  that  the  Pope  is  infallible  in  all 
matters  relating  to  faith  or  morals  ("  de  fide  vel 
moribus  ") ;  as  set  out  in  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning 
(vol.  II.  p.  450),  the  text  is  as  follows  :  "  Romanum 
Pontificem,  cum  ex  cathedra  loquitur.  .  .  doctrinam 
de  fide  vel  moribus  ab  universa  ecclesia  tenendam 
definit ;  per  assistentiam  divinam,  ipsi  in  beato  Petro 
promissam,  ea  infallibilitate  pollere  qua  divinus 
Redemptor  ecclesian  suam  in  definienda  doctrina  de 
fide  vel  moribus  instructam  esse  volent." 

The  conclusion  seems,  therefore,  inevitable  that 
according  to  Roman  Catholic  theory,  the  Pope 
is  not  only  the  source  of  all  law  and  has  power  to 
dispense  with  any  law,  but  can  direct  every  human 
intentional  or  rational  act,  including,  of  course,  the 
casting  of  a  ballot. 

As  the  Pope  can  therefore  direct  every  act  of 
reason,  he  controls  the  source  of  natural  law  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  above  civil  law. 

Thus  Leo  XIII.  himself  declares  in  his  Encyclical 
concerning  the  principal  duties  of  Christian  citizens, 
dated  January  10,  1890  (Leonis  Papae  XIII.  Alloca- 
tiones,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  15):  "  As  the  concord  of  minds 


74 

requires  perfect  consent  in  matters  of  faith,  so  it  also 
demands  wills  perfectly  subject  and  obedient  to  the 
Church  and  to  the  Roman  Pontiff  as  to  God.  .  .  . 
But  this  must  also  be  placed  among  the  duties  of 
Christians  (besides  a  belief  in  all  the  dogmas  of  the 
faith)  that  they  allow  themselves  to  be  ruled  and 
governed  by  the  power  and  authority  of  the  Bishops 
and  especially  of  the  Apostolic  Seat  "  (Rome). 

For  practical  applications  of  this  teaching,  one  has 
not  far  to  seek. 

The  "  New  World  "  (cited  in  the  Catholic  Review), 
speaks  more  plainly  :  "  We  hold  that,  where  a  Cath- 
olic is  nominated  for  an  important  public  office,  if  he 
be  in  every  respect  as  well  qualified  for  that  office  as 
his  opponent,  Catholics  are  justified  in  taking  into 
account  the  fact  of  his  being  a  Catholic  in  deciding 
how  they  will  vote." 

As  Cardinal  Logue,  the  Primate  of  all  Ireland, 
words  it  in  his  letter  to  the  Irish  Bishops  ("  Catholic 
Review,"  July  13,  1895):  "  A  control  (over  educa- 
tion) which  the  Church  has  not  from  any  department 
of  the  State  nor  from  the  delegation  of  the  people,  but 
from  her  divine  right  to  teach  and  safeguard  the 
faith  and  morals  of  all  her  members,  especially  the 
young." 

The  negative  proposition  also  follows,  as  the 
"  Catholic  Review  "  states  in  an  editorial  of  Novem- 
ber 24,  1895  :  "  They  (the  opponents  of  State  aid  to 
Roman  Catholic  schools)  have  no  right  to  make  the 
State  the  supreme  arbiter  in  morals." 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  all  the  powers  of 
the  State  are  enjoyed  on  sufferance  of  the  Church 


75 

for  their  relation — to  repeat  the  comparison  of  Leo 
XIII.  and  Thomas  Aquinas — is  that  of  dependence, 
i.  e.,  as  the  body  depends  on  the  soul. 

P.  Matteo  Liberatore,  in  his  Chiesa  e  Stato  (above 
cited),  says :  "  The  State  must  understand  itself  to 
be  a  subordinate  sovereignty  exercising  ministerial 
functions  under  a  superior  sovereignty  and  govern- 
ing the  people  conformably  to  the  will  of  that  lord 
to  whom  it  is  subject."  In  his  Encyclical  concerning 
the  duties  of  citizens,  dated  January  10,  1890,  Leq 
XIII.  says:  "  The  same  (the  Church)  is  not  only  a, 
perfect  society,  but  even  superior  to  any  human 
society."  A  similar  declaration  is  in  the  Encyclical 
on  Marriage  and  Divorce. 

What  were  the  authorities  of  St.  Thomas  A.quinas 
for  this  theory  of  the  relation  of  Church  and  State  ? 
In  the  passage  from  De  Regimine  Principum  above 
cited  (Lib.  III.,  Chapter  X.),  St.  Thomas  mentions 
the  two  principal  authorities  for  his  opinions  on  the 
relation  of  Church  and  State,  namely,  the  Philo- 
sopher, Aristotle,  from  whom  he  derived  his  philo- 
sophical theory,  and  the  writings  of  the  Supreme 
Pontiffs  and  of  the  Emperors,  from  which  he  derived 
his  historical  facts.  Among  the  latter  were  included 
the  forged  Pseudo-lsidorian  Decretals,  in  which 
he  implicitly  believed,  although  no  Roman  Catholic 
writer  of  this  century  ventures  to  defend  their  au- 
thenticity ;  see  Pope  and  Council  by  Janus.  In  the 
next  sentence  (Lib.  III.,  Chap.  X.  of  De  Regimine 
Principum),  in  the  extract  above  given,  he  cites  the 
cession  of  Constantine  to  Sylvester,  which  fiction 
was  a  part  of  this  most  gigantic  swindle  ;  and  in  his 


76 

book  against  the  Greek  Church,  he  relies  completely 
on  the  forged  passages  from  Cyril,  to  sustain  his 
argument  for  the  sovereignty  of  the  Pope.  No  one 
would  cite  these  writings  as  authorities  to-day  and 
yet  the  Infallible  Head  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  utters  no  word  of  warning  when  recommend- 
ing the  Angel  of  the  Schools  with  such  elaborate 
praise,  as  the  Patron  of  all  institutions  of  learning. 

If  we  consider  the  source  of  his  political  theories, 
is  that  entitled  to  any  greater  respect  ?  Aristotle  was 
the  tutor  and  pensioner  of  Alexander  the  Great,  who 
was  the  destroyer  of  Greek  republics  and  the  first  uni- 
versal monarch  ;  "  the  Philosopher  "  was  filled  with 
contempt  for  the  democracy  of  Athens,  which  natur- 
ally returned  the  feeling,  and  on  the  death  of  Alexan- 
der, he  had  to  flee  from  that  city.  How  great  was 
his  contempt  for  the  masses,  may  be  seen  by  the  fol- 
lowing two  quotations  (Politics,  III.,  5,  5) :  "  For  no 
man  can  practice  virtue  who  is  living  the  life  of  a 
mechanic;"  (/V/.,VL,  4,  12):  "  There  is  no  room  for 
moral  excellence  in  any  of  their  employments 
whether  they  be  mechanics  or  traders  or  laborers." 
In  his  Politics,  he  has  given  us  a  picture  of  the  ab- 
solute sovereignty  of  a  Greek  city,  in  which  every- 
thing that  we  consider  individual  liberty  is  sacrificed 
to  the  Government ;  he  intimates,  however,  that  an 
absolute  monarchy  was  his  actual  ideal,  and  evidently 
expected  this  from  Alexander.  His  theories  more- 
over were  intended  only  for  the  small  city-states  of 
his  day,  as  he  expressly  says  (Politics,  VII.,  6)  that 
no  state  should  have  more  than  100,000  inhabitants. 

Aquinas  entertained  the  same  opinion,  as  appears 


77 

from  his  De  Regimine  Principum,  where  he  com- 
pares the  relation  of  a  ruler  to  his  people  to  that  of 
a.  captain  to  his  crew  (Lib.  I.,  Cap.  XIV.),  and  in  his 
"  Contra  Gentiles  "  (Lib.  IV.,  Cap.  LXXVL),  where 
he  expresses  himself  as  follows  :  "  But  the  best  gov- 
ernment of  a  multitude  is  that  it  be  governed  by 
one ;  this  appears  from  the  end  of  government, 
which  is  peace ;  for  peace  and  the  unity  of  the  sub- 
jects is  the  aim  of  a  ruler  ;  but  one  is  more  likely  to 
produce  unity  than  many.  It  is  manifest,  therefore, 
that  the  government  of  the  Church  has  been  so  ar- 
ranged that  one  presides  over  the  whole  Church." 
The  same  idea  remained  in  the  Church  and  in  mod- 
ern times  is  voiced  by  Joseph  de  Maistre  in  his  "  Du 
Pape  "  (p.  1 6) :  "  It  is  the  same  with  the  Church  :  in 
one  way  or  the  other  it  must  be  governed  like  every 
other  association,  otherwise  there  would  be  no  ag- 
gregation, no  assembly,  no  unity.  That  government 
is  then  in  its  nature  infallible,  that  is  absolute  ;  other- 
wise it  would  no  longer  govern  ...  (p.  166).  No 
sovereign,  without  a  nation,  as  no  nation  without  a 
sovereign." 

The  Encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.  on  Church  Unity,  an 
abstract  of  which,  made  by  Cardinal  Gibbons,  is  pub- 
lished in  the  daily  press  of  June  30,  1896,  is  substan- 
tially a  repetition  of  this  idea : 

"  As  no  true  and  perfect  human  society  can  be 
conceived  which  is  not  governed  by  some  supreme 
authority,  so  Christ  of  necessity  gave  to  His  Church 
a  supreme  authority  to  which  all  Christians  must  be 
obedient.  For  the  preservation  of  unity  there  must 
be  unity  of  government  jure  divino,  and  men  may  be 


78 

placed  outside  the  one  fold  by  schism  as  well  as  by 
heresy." 

This  argument  in  favor  of  the  Papacy  would  be 
conclusive  if  all  societies  must  be  absolute  mon- 
archies ;  to  us,  living  for  over  a  century  in  a  federal 
republic,  without  king  or  emperor,  this  argument  has 
no  force.  A  cursory  glance  at  the  writ;ngs  of  Anlc- 
Nicene  Fathers  shows  that  the  early  Church  was  or- 
ganized not  as  an  absolute  monarchy,  but  as  a  group 
of  federal  States.  As  Canon  Gore  well  states  in  his 
Roman  Catholic  Claims  (p.  124) :  "  The  original  idea 
of  the  Episcopate  would  have  secured  for  the  Church 
a  duly  representative  government,  and  would  have 
provided,  by  the  confederation  of  relatively  in- 
dependent churches,  a  system  of  checks  upon  one- 
sided local  tendencies.  The  Papacy  represents  the 
triumph  of  imperial  absolutism  over  representative, 
constitutional  authority,  and  of  centralization  over 
consentient  witness  and  cooperation."  For  us  re- 
publicans, who  do  not  believe  that  the  rule  of  one  is 
the  best,  but  that  a  representative,  constitutional 
government  is  to  be  prelerred,  does  it  not  follow,  ac- 
cording to  the  reasoning  of  St.  Thomas,  last  above 
cited,  that  God  must  have  intended  His  Church  to 
have  a  representative,  constitutional  government,  in- 
stead of  an  absolute  monarchy  ? 

Aristotle  also  believed  in  the  division  of  citizens 
into  castes  (*'  Politics,"  Book  7,  Ch.  9),  which  idea 
was  probably  derived  from  Egyptian  precedent,  and 
among  republics  he  considered  the  aristocratic  Lace- 
daemon  to  be  the  model.  Thomas  Aquinas,  in  his 
Summa,  I.,  II.,  q.  95,  a.  4,  refers  to  the  different  laws 


79 

applicable  to  various  classes,  as  to  priests  who  pray 
for  the  people  and  to  warriors  who  fight  for  the 
people. 

Froude's  Council  of  Trent  gives  a  correct  picture 
of  the  result  of  these  teachings  :  (p.  8.)  "  There  is  a 
maxim  now  that  every  one  is  equal  before  the  law. 
From  the  twelfth  to  the  sixteenth  century  the 
clergy  were  a  separate  caste.  They  made  and  ad- 
ministered their  own  laws.  They  could  neither 
sue  or  be  sued  in  any  secular  court. 

(p.  ii.)  "  But  if  the  clergy  were  exempt  from  lay 
jurisdiction,  the  laity  were  not  exempt  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  clergy.  The  law  of  the  land 
might  deal  with  common  rights  and  obligations  de- 
finable by  statute  or  precedent.  The  clergy  as  the 
spiritual  fathers  of  the  people,  were  the  guardians 
of  morality.  They  had  courts  of  their  own,  con- 
ducted upon  their  own  principles,  before  which 

clergy  and  laity  were  alike  bound  to  appear 

Morality  was  a  word  of  widest  latitude The 

spiritual  law  extended  to  sins,  and  not  to  notori- 
ous moral  offenses  only,  but  to  everything  which 
could  be  construed  into  'sin  by  the  Church's  inter- 
pretation. 

(p.  4.)  "  The  original  reformation  was  a  revolt  of  the 
laity  against  the  clergy,  a  revolt  against  a  compli- 
cated and  all-embracing  practical  tyranny,  the  most 
intolerable  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  was 
embraced  on  an  assumption,  no  longer  seriously  held 
even  by  Catholics  themselves,  that  the  Church  was 
the  source  of  all  authority,  secular  as  well  as 
spiritual. 


8o 

(p.  174.)  "  The  laity  of  Germany,  the  laity  of  Eng- 
land, had  risen  against  ecclesiastical  supremacy  in 
all  its  forms.  The  Church's  doctrines  had  only  been 
offensive  so  far  as  they  symbolized  the  usurpation  of 
an  overbearing  and  self-indulgent  hierarchy." 

In  "  Kirche  und  Kirchen,"  written  by  Dr.  Dollin- 
ger  while  still  a  Roman  Catholic,  we  see  how  the 
Church  continued  to  assert  its  claims  for  the  priest- 
hood as  a  privileged  caste  in  the  Papal  States 
even  into  this  century,  so  far  as  it  had  the  power 
so  to  do. 

(p.  534.)  "As  the  priests  constituted  a  class  with 
privileges  such  as  could  exist  in  no  other  country  of 
the  world,  the  two  classes  were  divided  by  a  wide 
and  deep  gulf,  and  the  laity  was  filled  with  a  jealousy 
against  the  priesthood,  which  often  went  over  into 

decided  hate (p.  580.)  The  clergy  had  its 

privileged  court,  so  that  when  a  priest  and  a  layman 
were  both  guilty  of  the  same  crime,  they  were  tried 
before  different  courts.  But  also  the  penalties  were 
different.  Priests  had  the  privilege  of  lighter  pun- 
ishments." 

(p.  612.)  "All  higher  offices  are  filled  by  priests,  and 
laymen  cannot  fill  them (p.  614.)  The  de- 
mand is,  therefore,  not  the  exclusion  of  priests  from 
holding  public  office,  but  the  termination  of  a  rule 
of  caste,  the  introduction  of  the  principle  of  equality 
in  civil  affairs,  the  participation  of  the  people  in  its 
own  government (p.  615.)  The  dissatisfac- 
tion is  caused  by  the  great  inequality  of  social  posi- 
tion which  makes  the  priests  always  the  rulers,  and 
the  laymen  always  the  servants,  which  in  every  pub- 


8i 

lie  or  private  contest  between  layman  and  priest  all 
the  advantages  are  in  the  hands  of  the  latter  and 
makes  the  defeat  of  the  former  almost  certain." 

How  wide  the  gulf  between  the  Roman  Catholic 
clergy  and  laity  still  is,  even  in  England,  is  shown 
by  a  letter  of  Mgr.  Talbot,  in  the  Life  of  Cardinal 
Manning  (Vol.  II.,  P.  318)  : 

"  They  (the  laity)  are  now  beginning  to  show  the 
cloven  foot,  which  I  have  seen  the  existence  of  for 
a  long  time.  They  are  only  putting  into  practice 
the  doctrine  taught  by  Dr.  Newman  in  his  "  Ram- 
bler." .  .  .  What  is  the  province  of  the  laity  ? 
To  hunt,  to  shoot,  to  entertain.  These  matters  they 
understand ;  but  to  meddle  with  ecclesiastical  mat- 
ters they  have  no  right  at  all." 

Cardinal  Manning  lamented  that  this  spirit  still 
existed  even  in  England  (Cardinal  Manning's  Life, 
p.  783) :  "  I  have  often  said  that  our  priests  are  al- 
ways booted  and  spurred  like  cavalry  officers  in 
time  of  peace." 

This  castelike  division  of  classes  Ignatius  Loyola 
had  done  his  part  to  complete,  by  supplying  the 
highest  priestly  or  ruling  class.  How  strictly  he 
bound  his  order  to  follow  Thomas  on  every  point, 
we  have  heard  in  the  Encyclical  above  cited,  and 
his  pupil,  Leo  XIII.,  has  shown  us.  The  absolute 
subj  action  in  the  Jesuit  order  of  the  individual  to 
the  whole,  is  therefore  a  result  of  the  same  theories 
which  produced  in  Greece  the  blind  obedience  of  the 
Lacedaemonians  to  their  laws,  with  its  total  eradica- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  individualism  and  progress. 

How  strongly  Leo  XIII.  believes  in  this  castelike 


82 

division  is  shown  by  the  epistle  concerning  the  obedi- 
ence due  by  laymen  to  bishops,  dated  December  17, 
1888  (Leonis  Papae  XIIL,  p.  183):  "  It  is  plain  that 
there  are  in  the  Church  two  orders  of  men,  one  dis- 
tinct by  nature  from  the  other,  shepherds  and  flock, 
that  is,  rulers  and  masses.  The  duty  of  the  first 
order  is  to  teach,  to  govern,  to  moderate  the  discipline 
of  life,  to  give  precepts ;  the  duty  of  the  other  is  to 
be  subject,  to  obey,  to  follow  precepts,  to  give  honor." 

The  express  recognition  of  the  principle  of  relig- 
ious persecution  is,  moreover,  an  echo  of  the  old 
Greek  city  constitution,  which  could  not  allow 
within  its  narrow  borders  any  who  did  not  recog- 
nize the  city's  gods ;  not  to  swear  bv  them  was  the 
sign  of  a  traitor.  Rome  was  in  theory  never  any- 
thing more  than  a  magnified  city-state  and  when 
the  cloak  of  the  Cassars  fell  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
Pontifex  Maximus  rather  than  on  those  of  the  Ger- 
man rulers  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  the  refusal 
of  heretics  to  recognize  the  Pope  was  punished  in 
much  of  the  same  spirit  as  the  refusal  of  early 
Christians  to  offer  incense  to  the  Roman  Emperors ; 
Torquemada  was  acting  for  the  successor  of  Diocle- 
tian. Christianity  has,  therefore,  in  this,  as  in  so 
many  other  points,  been  forced  to  bear  the  blame 
for  acts  which  were  the  consequences  of  following 
too  closely  the  teachings  of  the  ancient  heathen 
civilizations,  instead  of  those  of  the  Gospel. 

No  greater  contrast  than  that  between  our  Ger- 
manic Federal  Constitution,  as  outlined  in  the 
"  Federalist,"  with  its  resoect  for  the  individual  and 
its  limited  organizations  for  the  government  of  local, 


83 

state  and  national  affairs,  and  the  inorganic,  abso- 
lute government  of  a  Greek  city  can  be  imagined ; 
see  the  author's  "  Trade  Organizations  in  Politics 
or  Federalism  in  Cities."  The  "  Ancien  Regime  " 
of  France,  which  was  overthrown  by  the  Revolu- 
tion, based  its  pretensions  on  the  theories  of  Aristotle 
and  Aquinas.  "  L'etat,  c'est  moi "  of  Louis  XIV.  is 
of  the  same  ancestry  as  "  L'eglise,  c'est  moi,"  or 
rather  "  La  monde,  c'est  moi "  of  Leo  XIII. 

As  the  Most  Reverend  Dr.  Sheehan,  Bishop  of 
Waterford,  at  the  Mayrooth  Centenary  declared, 
in  the  presence  of  the  whole  English  and  Irish 
hierarchy  (Catholic  Review  of  July  20,  1895) :  "  For 
us  and  for  all  Catholics  he  (Leo  XIII.)  is  the  vicar 
of  Christ,  the  divinely  appointed  Head  of  the 
Church  and  the  leader  and  ruler  of  nations."  The 
echo  of  the  cry  urbi  et  orbi  for  universal  dominion 
has  not  yet  died  out  among  the  Seven  Hills. 

But  right  or  wrong  in  theory,  have  we  Americans 
not  had  enough  of  sovereignties  within  our  federal 
constitution  that  we  should  now  accept  a  sover- 
eignty (for  that  is  what  Leo  XIII. 's  "  perfect  society" 
under  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  amounts  to)  above  our 
Constitution  ?  How  can  we  reconcile  such  theories 
with  our  principle  of  the  separation  of  State  and 
Church,  which  leaves  to  the  latter  to  insure  obedi- 
ence to  its  commands  only  appeals  to  the  love  of 
God  and  man,  residing  in  each  of  us,  as  set  out  for 
example  in  Seabury's  "  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
Ecclesiastical  Polity  "  ?  How  are  such  theories  com- 
patible with  a  government  "  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people  "? 


84 

The  Rt.  Rev.  Abbott  Snow,  O.  S.  B.,  recognizes 
the  incompatibility  frankly  in  "  The  Catholic 
Times"  of  August  10,  1894:  "All  authority  and 
power  (it  is  said)  must  be  derived  from  the  people, 
be  exercised  in  their  name,  and  be  terminable  at 
their  will.  In  such  a  state  what  place  is  there  for 
ecclesiastical  authority  ?  Religion  supposes  an  au- 
thority derived  from  God  to  regulate  a  system  for 
the  worship  of  God.  The  Catholic  Church  has  a 
hierarchy  of  officials — Pope,  Bishops  and  Clergy— 
with  authority  to  command  the  obedience  of  the 
people  independent  of  the  State.  These  officials 
cannot  rule  at  the  will  of  the  State  nor  can  their 
authority  be  derived  from  it."  As  Justin  McCarthy 
says  in  his  Leo  XIII.  (p.  85):  "The  empire  of  the 
Pope  is  not  merely  greater  than  any  other  empire. 
It  folds  in  all  the  empires  and  all  the  monarchies  and 
all  the  republics  in  the  world." 

The  negative  declarations  of  the  Syllabus,  which 
caused  so  much  alarm  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  have  been 
developed  and  put  into  the  form  of  positive,  univer- 
sal commands  by  Leo  XIII. ;  he  has  completed  the 
scheme  which  Aquinas  planned  and  of  which  Loyola 
commenced  the  execution ;  its  aim  is  in  the  dominion 
of  the  world  under  a  caste  of  priests  ruled  by  a 
supreme  Pontiff.  In  short,  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  has  been  Jesuitized  and  now  it  would 
Jesuitize  the  world,  through  this  apt  pupil  of  the 
Jesuits,  Leo  XIII.  Nippold's  Kirchengeschichte 
(second  volume)  shows  how  the  study  of  St.  Thomas 
has  always  preceded  ultra-montanism  and  a  Jesuit 
invasion. 


85 

But  even  if  we  succeed  in  resisting  the  active 
assertion  of  the  Papal  claims  as  to  the  respective 
domains  of  Church  and  State,  is  not  the  very  idea  of 
the  complete  separation  of  the  religious  from  the 
national  life  of  a  people,  negatively,  a  mistake  ?  Kidd, 
in  his  Social  Evolution,  has  shown  that  the  real  prin- 
ciple of  life  in  a  nation  is  its  religion  ;  it  is  this  super- 
natural sanction  which  makes  men  ready  to  sacrifice 
their  selfish  individual  instinct  for  the  good  of  the 
whole,  for  the  benefit  of  generations  yet  unborn. 
He  says  (p.  in):  "A  religion  is  a  form  of  belief 
providing  an  ultra-rational  sanction  for  that  large 
class  of  conduct  in  the  individual  where  his  interests 
and  the  interest  of  the  social  organism  are  antag- 
onistic, and  by  which  the  former  are  rendered  subor- 
dinate to  the  latter  in  the  general  interests  of  the 
evolution  which  the  race  is  undergoing." 

The  nations  with  national  religions  like  Russia  and 
England  have  certainly  in  this  century  taken  a 
decided  lead  in  progress  of  every  kind  before  Roman 
Catholic  countries,  like  France  and  Austria.  Is  not 
a  certain  connection  between  the  nation  and  a 
national  church  desirable  and  theoretically  cor- 
rect, so  that  the  idea  of  an  in  ernational  church 
organization  is  in  itself  to  be  rejected?  If  all  the 
men  of  a  certain  race  have  once  become  convinced 
sincerely  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and  become 
enlightened  by  the  gift  of  God's  Holy  Spirit  speak- 
ing to  their  consciences,  why  should  they  not  meet 
to  consult  and  determine  what  is  best  for  the  spirit- 
ual welfare  of  all  the  race  and  in  what  form  they  can 
best  worship  their  Creator?  As  Westcott  says  in 


86 

his  "  Social  Aspects  of  Christianity  "  (p.  76) :  '<  A 
national  church  alone  can  consecrate  the  whole  life 
of  a  people." 

If  the  theory  advanced  in  the  fourth  chapter  of 
this  book  is  correct,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  prom- 
ised not  only  to  the  priesthood,  but  to  all  laymen 
who  would  avail  themselves  of  God's  holy  ordinances, 
does  it  not  also  follow  that  on  all  men  devolves 
directly  the  duty  of  making  the  State  as  nearly  as 
possible  what  God  has  willed  that  His  kingdom  on 
earth  should  be,  and  that  therefore  the  laity  are  not 
bound  to  wait  (as  the  Belgians  have  been  required 
by  the  Pope  to  do)  for  a  Congress  of  Bishops  to  di- 
rect them  as  to  the  proper  health,  labor  and  poor 
laws  which  they  should  enact  ?  The  old  contest  of 
the  Reformation,  of  the  laity  against  the  caste  of 
priests,  of  the  light  of  grace  against  the  light  of 
nature,  is  therefore  not  ended. 

The  nearest  approach  to  the  realization  of  this 
ideal  relation  of  Church  and  State,  has  been  in  the 
colonies  of  Portugal  and  Spain ;  from  such  a  govern- 
ment— Good  Lord  deliver  us  ! 

Under  how  many  reservations  in  favor  of  the 
eternal  and  natural  law  and  of  the  directions  of  the 
infallible  Roman  guide  in  morals,  must  not  a  sincere 
Roman  Catholic  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  ?  Is  not 
his  conception  of  the  State  necessarily  very  far  from 
that  of  a  brotherhood  of  men,  working  out  God's 
will  according  to  light  of  their  consciences,  and 
willing  to  sacrifice  everything  "  one  for  all  and  all 
for  one,'' — to  carry  out  the  spirit  of  the  cry  "  E  pluri- 
bus  unum "  ?  The  oath  of  allegiance  of  a  faith- 


ful  Roman  Catholic  must  read  about  as  follows: 
"  I  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  support  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  except  where  it  is  contrary 
to  the  pontifical  or  natural  or  eternal  law,  and  that  I 
renounce  allegiance  and  fidelity  to  all  foreign  sov- 
ereigns, except  that  in  all  rational  or  intentional  acts 
I  will  obey  the  infallible  direction  of  the  Pontiff  of 
Rome." 

The  following  lines  from  Doctor  (now,  the  author 
believes,  Cardinal)  Hergenroether,  in  his  Catholic 
Church  and  Christian  State,  seem  worthy  of  "  a 
Daniel  come  to  justice  v  :  "  No  State  can  be  re- 
quired to  permit  what  will  endanger  its  own 
existence  and  destroy  the  foundations  of  all  social 
order.  Yet  there  are  sects  and  religions  which 

would  do  this Who  would  dream  of 

requiring  that  these  sects  should  be  tolerated  or 
recognized  by  the  State,  or  deny  that  the  State 
not  only  might  but  ought  to  resist  them  by  all  the 
means  at  its  disposal  ?  No  liberty  is  granted  to  doc- 
trines ...  which  threaten  the  constitution  of 
the  State  and  the  observance  of  the  civil  laws." 

To  cure  this  attachment  of  Roman  Catholics  to  a 
foreign  potentate  but  two  remedies  suggest  them- 
selves :  One  is  to  inculcate  the  theory  that,  al- 
though the  Pope  controls  reason  and  consequently 
conscience,  still,  on  questions  relating  to  the  State, 
the  reason  or  conscience  is  not  to  be  exercised. 
This  teaching  results,  of  course,  in  complete  obedi- 
ence of  the  subject  to  the  ruler ;  it  can  only  be  justi- 
fied through  the  argument  that  the  Crown  is  as 
truly  a  divine  institution  as  the  Papacy.  The  Di- 


vine  Right  of  Kings  is  therefore  directly  due  to  the 
Divine  Right  of  Popes  ;  it  was  the  only  possible 
antidote  to  the  latter;  see  "The  Divine  Right  of 
Kings,"  by  J.  N.  Figgis  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  New 
York,  1896).  It  is  therefore  perfectly  natural  to  find 
many  Jesuit  writers  asserting  the  rights  of  the 
People  as  against  the  Crown,  but  by  "  the  People  " 
was  always  understood  a  "  Pope-guided  people." 
The  partiality  of  Leo  XIII.  for  Democracies  is  there- 
fore easily  understood ;  with  the  Divine  Right  of 
Kings  disappears  his  chief  and  only  rival.  A  De- 
mocracy has  no  such  dangerous  enemy  ,  the  idea  of 
popular  sovereignty  can  never  take  the  place  of  a 
personal  sovereign ;  moreover,  the  Pope,  as  guide 
of  the  human  conscience  or  reason,  can  interfere 
whenever  he  pleases  in  the  formation  of  this  popu- 
lar idol.  An  independent  republic  and  Roman 
Catholicism  are  therefore,  from  their  very  nature, 
incompatible.  The  only  other  remedy  is,  there- 
fore, to  convince  our  Roman  Catholic  fellow-citi- 
zens of  the  truth  of  the  proposition  set  forth  be- 
low, in  the  chapter  on  the  Church  and  Individual, 
in  which  it  is  shown  that  on  no  questions  has  a  per- 
son the  right  to  exile  his  reason  or  conscience,  and 
place  it,  gagged  and  bound,  in  foreign  hands ;  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  his  most  important  duty 
to  develop  this  talent  to  the  utmost,  through  God's 
most  holy  ordinances,  and  to  obey  implicitly  the 
warnings  of  this  inspired  monitor.  No  State  has 
anything  to  fear  from  an  appeal  to  man's  conscience, 
in  direct  communion,  without  human  mediation, 
with  God  the  Holy  Ghost. 


89 

If  this  second  remedy  is  not  applied  thoroughly 
and  speedily,  then,  as  the  author  believes,  is 
the  prospect  dark  indeed.  Then  must  echo  the 
streets  again  with  the  cries,  "  Hi,  Guelph  ! "  "  Hi, 
Ghibelline ! "  Then  must  ring  the  pulpits  again 
with  denunciations  of  the  Divine  Right  of  Popes, 
as  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  and  with 
praise  for  its  only  possible  substitute,  the  Divine 
Right  of  Kings. 

The  contest  would  be  for  the  right  to  follow  the 
inner  light,  to  listen  to  the  small,  still  voice, — for 
which  Socrates  drank  his  cup  of  hemlock. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  CHURCH  AND'  THE  WORKINGMAN. 

From  the  prominence  which  the  labor  question 
bears  in  modern  life,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that 
Leo  XIII.  would  overlook  it ;  in  fact,  in  the  first 
year  of  his  reign,  he  wrote  denouncing  socialism  and 
communism,  and  in  1891  he  issued  his  famous  Ency- 
clical "Novarum  rerum,"  in  which  he  undertook  to 
provide  remedies  for  the  distressing  conditions  of 
the  laboring  classes  of  the  world.  How  strongly  he 
felt  this  to  be  his  duty  and  privilege  the  Encyclical 
expressly  shows :  "  It  (the  condition  of  labor)  is  a 
matter  which  we  have  touched  once  or  twice  already. 
But  in  this  letter  the  responsibility  of  the  Apostolic 
offices  urges  us  to  treat  the  question  expressly  and 
at  length,  in  order  that  there  may  be  no  mistake  as 
to  the  principles  which  truth  and  justice  dictate  for 
its  settlement.  .  .  .  We  approach  the  subject 
with  confidence  and  in  the  exercise  of  the  rights 
which  belong  to  us;  for  no  practical  solution  for 
this  question  will  ever  be  found  without  the  assist- 
ance of  religion  and  of  the  Church.  It  is  we  who  are 
the  chief  guardians  of  religion  and  the  chief  dis- 
penser of  what  belongs  to  the  church,  and  we  must 
not  by  silence  neglect  the  duty  which  lies  upon  us." 

In  the  Encyclical  to  the  Belgian  Bishops  (above 
cited)  the  social  question  is  expressly  claimed  for 


9i 

the  Church  as  falling  within  the  domain  of  religion 
and  morals. 

Nor  is  this  view  peculiar  to  Leo  XIII. ;  under  the 
definition  of  morals  as  explained  in  a  former  chapter, 
the  whole  social  system  is  included  and  the  ordinary 
Roman  Catholic  text-books  on  Morality  include  chap- 
ters on  all  important  social  questions  ;  for  example, 
the  above  cited  \york  on  Moral  Philosophy  by  Father 
Russo,  Father  Rickaby's  Moral  Philosophy,  F. 
Costa  Rossetti's  Institutiones  Ethicas  et  Juris 
Naturse. 

How  imperative  and  final  the  plan  is  to  be  regarded 
by  Roman  Catholics,  is  shown  also  by  the  same 
Encyclical  to  the  Belgian  Bishops,  cited  in  the  Intro- 
duction, in  which  he  prohibits  the  laity  from  discus- 
sing the  social  question  in  that  country  and  summons 
•a  council  of  Bishops  to  consider  it.  How  implicitly 
this  infallible  voice  is  followed  also  in  these  matters, 
appears  from  the  unconditional  acceptance  of  its 
teachings,  even  by  Roman  Catholic  writers  who  had 
previously  entertained  most  opposite  views,  such  as 
M.  Charles  Revin,  who,  in  his  L'economie  politique 
d'apres  1'Encyclique  (Paris,  1891),  referring  to  this 
Encyclical,  declares,  on  page  21  :  "  The  Church,  be- 
hold our  guide,  our  true  master  for  the  social  ques- 
tion ;  let  us  follow  her  and  no  one  else.  Let  us  have 
no  other  political  economy  than  that  which  flows 
from  her  teachings  on  the  labor  question." 

Father  Zahm,  in  his  article  on  "  Leo  XIII.  and 
the  Social  Question,"  in  the  North  American  Re- 
view for  August,  1895,  says:  "We  recognize  in  the 
earnest  but  tender  words  of  the  Pontiff,  the  divine 


92 

perfume  of  the  Master,  the  precise  lessons  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  the  carefully  pondered 
and  soundly  democratic  teachings  of  the  Doctors  of 
the  Middle  Ages." 

To  understand  the  scheme  of  the  Holy  Father 
aright,  we  must  bear  in  mind  one  sentence  of  this 
Encyclical :  "  Let  us  now,  therefore,  inquire  what 
part  the  State  should  play  in  the  work  of  remedy 
and  relief.  By  the  State  we  here  understand,  not 
the  particular  form  of  government  which  prevails 
in  this  or  that  nation,  but  the  State  as  rightly  under- 
stood ;  that  is  to  say  any  government  conformable  in 
its  institutions  to  right  reason  and  natural  law,  and 
to  those  dictates  of  the  Divine  Wisdom  which  we 
have  expounded  in  the  Encyclical  on  the  Christian 
Constitution  of  the  State." 

To  fill  in  any  lacking  details  of  the  plan  pro- 
posed, we  must  therefore  suppose  that  before  it  can 
be  carried  out  completely,  the  State  must  have  been 
reorganized  according  to  the  principles  laid  down  in 
the  foregoing  chapter,  so  that  the  relation  of  Church 
and  State  shall  have  become  like  that  of  the  soul 
and  body,  and  the  Church  would  then  of  course  be 
able  to  supply  in  its  good  judgment  all  that  might 
be  necessary  to  this  scheme  of  social  reform. 

One  passage  from  this  Encyclical  is  worth  citing 
at  this  point  to  remind  us  of  the  superiority  of  the 
soul :  "  It  is  the  soul  which  is  made  after  the  image 
and  likeness  of  God ;  it  is  in  the  soul  that  sover- 
eignty resides,  in  virtue  of  which  man  is  commanded 
to  rule  the  creatures  below  him,  and  to  use  all  the 
earth  and  the  ocean  for  his  profit  and  advantage." 


93 

The  plan  of  the  Encyclical,  to  state  it  in  a  few 
words,  agrees  substantially  with  the  teachings  of  the 
State-socialists,  laying  special  stress  on  the  develop- 
ment of  trades  unions.  But  these  organizations 
must  consist  exclusively  of  Roman  Catholics ;  he 
says :  "  But  there  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence  which 
goes  to  prove  that  many  of  these  societies  are  in  the 
hands  of  invisible  leaders  and  are  managed  on  prin- 
ciples far  from  compatible  with  Christianity  and  the 
public  well-being  ;  and  that  they  do  their  best  to  get 
into  their  hands  the  whole  field  of  labor  and  to  force 
workmen  either  to  join  them  or  to  starve.  Under 
these  circumstances  Christain  workmen  must  do 
one  of  two  things  ;  either  join  associations  in  which 
their  religion  will  be  exposed  to  peril,  or  form  asso- 
ciations among  themselves — unite  their  forces  and 
courageously  shake  off  the  yoke  of  an  unjust  and 
intolerable  oppression.  No  one  who  does  not  wish 
to  expose  man's  chief  good  to  extreme  danger  will 
hesitate  to  say  that  the  second  alternative  must  by 
all  means  be  adopted.  .  .  .  It  is  clear  that  they 
(workingmen's  association)  must  pay  special  and 
principal  attention  to  piety  and  morality  .  .  .  Let  our 
associations  then  look  first  and  before  all  to  God  ; 
let  religious  instruction  have  therein  a  foremost 
place,  each  one  being  carefully  taught  what  is  his 
duty  to  God,  what  to  believe,  what  to  hope  for  and 
how  to  work  out  his  salvation  .  .  .  Let  him  learn  to 
reverence  and  to  love  mother  Church,  the  common 
mother  of  us  all  ...  Such  mutual  associations 
among  Catholics  are  certain  to  be  productive  in  no 
small  degree  of  prosperity  to  the  State." 


94 

Moreover  these  organizations  must  be  as  inde- 
pendent as  possible  from  the  State  :  "  Particular 
societies,  then,  although  they  exist  within  the  State, 
and  are  each  a  part  of  the  State,  nevertheless  cannot 
be  prohibited  by  the  State  absolutely  and  as  such. 
For  to  enter  into  '  society  '  of  this  kind  is  the  natural 
right  of  man  ;  and  the  State  must  protect  natural 
rights,  not  destroy  them  ;  and  if  it  forbids  its  citizens 
to  form  associations,  it  contradicts  the  very  prin- 
ciple of  its  own  existence  ;  for  both  they  and  it  exist 
in  virtue  of  the  same  principles,  viz.:  the  natural 
propensity  of  man  to  live  in  society  .  .  .  But  every 
precaution  should  be  taken  not  to  violate  the  rights 
of  individuals  and  not  to  make  unreasonable  regula- 
tions under  the  pretense  of  public  benefit.  For  laws 
only  bind  when  they  are  in  accordance  with  right 
reason  and  therefore  with  the  eternal  law  of  God.  .  . 
Let  the  State  watch  over  these  societies  of  citizens 
united  together  in  the  exercise  of  their  right ;  but 
let  it  not  thrust  itself  into  their  peculiar  concerns 
and  their  organization.' 

In  a  previous  passage  of  the  Encyclical,  after  re- 
commending a  minimum  wage,  he  proceeds :  "  In 
these  and  similar  questions,  however,  such  as,  for 
example,  the  hours  of  labor  in  different  trades,  the 
sanitary  precautions  to  be  observed  in  factories  and 
work  shops,  etc.,  in  order  to  supersede  undue  inter- 
ference on  the  part  of  the  State,  especially  as  circum- 
stances, times  and  localities  differ  so  widely,  it  is  ad- 
visable that  recourse  be  had  to  societies  or  boards 
such  as  we  shall  mention  presently,  or  to  some  other 
method  of  safe  guarding  the  interests  of  wage 


95 

earners ;  the  State  to  be  asked  for  approval  and  pro- 
tection." 

Each  association  is  to  consist  of  employers  as 
well  as  employed.  "  If  it  should  happen  that  either 
a  master  or  a  workman  deemed  himself  injured, 
nothing  would  be  more  desirable  than  that  there 
should  be  a  committee  composed  of  honest  and 
capable  men  of  the  association  itself,  whose  duty  it 
should  be,  by  the  laws  of  the  association,  to  decide 
the  dispute.  Among  the  purposes  of  a  society 
should  be  to  try  to  arrange  for  a  continuous  supply 
of  work  at  all  times  and  seasons ;  and  to  create  a 
fund  from  which  the  members  may  be  helped  in 
their  necessities,  not  only  in  cases  of  accident,  but 
also  in  sickness,  old  age  and  misfortune.'' 

From  the  foregoing  extract  it  is  evident  that  the 
Infallible  Head  of  the  Roman  Church  has  decided  in 
favor  of  that  school  of  political  economy  which  in 
Germany  is  represented  by  Abbe  Sellings,  the 
director  of  the  Christlich  Sociale  Blatter,  and  in 
France  by  Leon  Harmel,  the  proprietor  of  the  great 
factory  at  Val-des-Bois  ;  both  of  these  writers  repre- 
sent the  free  guild  system  as  opposed  to  the  plan  of 
compulsory  guilds,  under  the  superintendence  of  the 
State  ;  the  latter  plan  is  advocated  in  Germany  by 
Baron  Ilitze  and  in  France  by  the  Count  de  Mun. 
If  we  therefore  turn  to  the  writers  first  mentioned 
we  find  a  plainer  and  bolder  picture  of  the  plan 
which  Leo  XIII.  evidently  had  in  his  mind  and  of 
which  he  drew  the  outline  in  his  Encyclical.  Thus 
Sellings  writes :  "  The  old  corporations  (guilds) 
were  created  by  the  Church.  And  it  was  because 


96 

they  were  religious  associations  and  maintained  their 
character  as  such  that  they  preserved  their  vigor 
and  stability.  .  .  .  The  Christian  spirit  is'a  family 
tie,  uniting  together  masters,  fellow  workmen  and 
apprentices,  and  the  destruction  of  this  spirit  by  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  was  the  death 
blow  to  the  corporations.  How  then  can  these  new 
compulsory  corporations,  which  must  necessarily 
comprise  all  workmen  without  any  distinction  of 
creed — how  then  can  they  be  expected  to  produce  the 
same  beneficial  results  ?  How  then  can  you  expect  to 
find  a  family  spirit  in  the  workshop  where  the  master, 
is  a  Protestant,  the  foreman  a  Jew,  the  apprentice  a 
Catholic,  or  vice  versa"?  A  guild  composed  of 
Catholics  and  Protestants  could  have  no  real  con- 
sistence and  would  merely  have  an  external  appear- 
ance of  union  maintained  perhaps  by  the  police." 
To  the  same  effect  speaks  Leon  Harmel  in  the  As- 
sociation Catholique  des  Patrons  du  Nord  :  "  We 
will  not  upon  any  account  accept  the  compulsory 
guilds  because  the  combining  of  unequal  and  fre- 
quently opposed  elements  can  only,  from  the  moral 
point  of  view,  produce  disastrous  effects.  Those 
who  would  build  in  company  must  first  speak  the 
same  language ;  now,  Catholics  and  free  thinkers 
have  an  entirely  different  language:  the  first  call 
honor  that  which  the  others  deem  cowardice,  the 
second  call  liberty  what  the  others  consider  as 
slavery ;  the  former  are  ready  to  give  their  life  for 
their  duty,  while  the  latter  hold  rebellion  as  the 
first  of  duties.  On  all  arguments  concerning  virtue, 
probity,  disinterestedness,  the  origin  and  aim  of  life, 


97 

they  each  speak  a  separate  language.  How  then 
could  they  act  in  concert  in  re-constructing  a  moral 
fabric  which  demands  unity  and  community  of 
effort?" 

Father  Liberatore  in  his  Principles  of  Political 
Economy,  which  is  supposed  to  have  served  as  a 
suggestion  for  the  Papal  Encyclical,  speaks  to  the 
same  effect  (page  289):  "  Clearly  corporations  ought 
to  be  founded  on  religion.  .  .  .  Here  the  Austrian 
corporations  are  wide  of  the  mark,  being  compelled 
to  admit  '  oves  et  boves  universas,  insuper  et  pecora 
campi.'  Catholics,  Protestants,  Jews,  and  even 
atheists  are  indiscriminately  brought  together  there- 
in ;  so  that  the  basis  of  these  societies  is  not  relig- 
ious, but  purely  economic.  This  is  the  result  of  the 
compulsory  system,  which  is  also  against  harmony 
of  thought  and  feeling.  .  .  .  The  danger  of  in- 
timacy between  people  of  different  religions  may  be 
much  obviated  by  instituting  for  the  Catholics,  pious 
congregations  to  serve  as  an  antidote  and  bind  them 
together  as  a  separate  unity.  Thus  whereas  in 
former  days  Corporations  arose  out  of  Confraterna- 
ties,  Confraternities  would  now  come  out  of  Corpor- 
ations .  .  .  (page  293) :  The  Christian  Corpor- 
ation, so  far  as  its  organizing  and  its  internal  admin- 
istration are  concerned,  should  be  formed  and  main- 
tained independently  of  the  State.  This  is  essential ; 
for  the  State,  separated  from  the  Church  and  from 
God,  would  influence  it  badly.  A  Christian  Corpor- 
ation should  be  professedly  and  thoroughly  religious, 
faithfully  keep  the  laws  of  the  Church,  and  obey  de- 
voutly the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ.  How  then  can  it 


98 

accept  the  interference  of  governments  that  are 
either  hostile  to  the  Catholic  religion  or  at  least  in- 
different to  it?  The  Corporation  must  keep  clear 
of  rulers  whose  touch  defiles.  '  May  God  preserve 
us,'  says  Claude  Janet,  'from  seeing  the  modern 
State  add  this  social  policy  to  its  other  numerous 
invasions  of  the  rights  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
family.'  ' 

In  the  Encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.  addressed  to  the 
American  Bishops,  dated  Jan.  6th,  1895,  and  beginning 
with  the  word  "  Longinqua,"  there  are  several  sen- 
tences which  add  a  few  touches  to  the  sketch  con-.- 
tained  in  the  Encyclical  on  Labor,  showing  still 
more  plainly  that  the  plan  of  the  writer  last  above 
cited  is  the  one  he  bears  in  mind  :  "  But  it  is  very 
important  to  take  heed  with  whom  they  (Roman 
Catholic  workingmen)  are  to  associate  else,  while 
seeking  aids  for  the  improvement  of  their  condition, 
they  may  be  imperilling  far  weighter  interests. 
.  .  .  Nay,  rather,  unless  forced  by  necessity 
to  do  otherwise,  Catholics  ought  to  prefer  to 
associate  with  Catholics,  a  course  which  would  be 
very  conducive  to  the  safe  guarding  of  their  faith. 
As  president  of  Societies  thus  formed  among  them- 
selves, it  would  be  well  to  appoint  either  priests  or 
upright  laymen  of  weight  and  character,  guided  by 
whose  councils  they  should  endeavor  peacefully 
to  adopt  and  carry  into  effect  such  measures  as 
may  seem  most  advantageous  to  their  interests, 
keeping  in  view  the  rules  laid  down  by  us  in  our 
Encyclical  Rerum  Novarum." 

As   Father   Zahm   says   in   the   North   American 


99 

Review  of  August,  1895  :  "  The  Encyclical  Longin- 
qua  Oceani  Spatia  recently  issued  is,  in  a  measure 
but  a  supplement  of  Rerum  Novarum." 

How  important  a  part  the  priestly  president  of 
such  a  society  would  play  will  be  plain  when  we  re- 
member that  both  employers  and  employed  are  to 
be  members,  as  in  the  so-called  mixed  syndicates  of 
France,  and  that  the  priest  would  have  to  act  the 
part  of  mediator  or  umpire  between  them.  Father 
Liberatore,  in  his  above  cited  work,  seems  to  have 
again  been  followed  on  this  point:  "  The  mixed  Syndi- 
cate is  the  only  sound  one.  By  uniting  masters  and 
workmen  it  paves  the  way  for  a  true  Corporation. 
.  .  .  (Page  294) :  This  (government  of  Christian 
corporation),  however,  must  be  understood  in  a 
hierarchical  manner ;  so  that  the  highest  places  be 
filled  by  the  masters,  who  are  superiors  born  of  the 
Corporation ;  the  next  by  the  principal  and  best 
workmen,  the  lowest  by  the  whole  multitude  as  hav- 
ing the  right  to  select  their  representatives,  and  thus 
by  means  of  them  watch  over  the  management  and 
distribution  of  what  is  owned  in  common." 

In  an  earlier  Encyclical  entitled  Humanum  Genus, 
in  1884,  Leo  XIII.  had  already  said  :  "In  the  third 
place  there  are  certain  institutions  wisely  estab- 
lished by  our  forefathers,  and  which  in  the  course  of 
time  have  been  dropped,  which  may  become  at  the 
present  time  the  type  and  model,  as  it  were,  of  sim- 
ilar institutions.  We  speak  of  those  guilds  or  asso- 
ciations of  workingmen  which  aim  at  protecting, 
with  the  guidance  of  religion,  their  worldly  inter- 
ests and  morality.  And  if  our  ancestors,  after  the 
experience  of  ages,  appreciated  so  fully  the  utility 


100 

of  such  institutions,  our  age  values  it  even  more 
highly  on  account  of  the  peculiar  power  they  afford 
of  crushing  the  strength  of  the  sects.  .  .  .  For 
these  reasons  and  for  the  common  welfare  we  fer- 
vently wish  to  see  these  guilds,  so  suited  to  the 
time,  re-established  under  the  auspices  and  patron- 
age of  the  Bishops."  ("  Leo  XIII.,"  by  Rev.  James 
F.  Talbot,  D.  D.,  page  338.)  The  term  "sects" 
does  not  refer  to  religious  bodies,  but  includes  all 
who  are  known  as  Naturalists  in  philosophy  or 
Liberals  in  politics,  as  was  shown  in  the  first  chapter. 

No  modern  student  of  political  economy  will  doubt 
that  Leo  XIII.  was  right  in  assigning  the  most  im- 
portant place  in  the  solution  of  the  social  question  to 
labor  organizations.  But  the  question  is  submitted, 
if  the  papal  plan  to  form  trade  organizations  consist- 
ing exclusively  of  Roman  Catholics  and  formed 
expressly  for  the  purpose  of  "crushing  the  sects" 
under  the  leadership  of  the  priest,  succeeds,  what 
will  be  the  fate  of  other  workingmen  ?  In  his  Labor 
Encyclical,  above  cited  Leo  XIII.  has  already  de- 
clared that  unorganized  labor  in  competition  with 
labor  unions  will  be  driven  to  starvation.  As  Pro- 
testants are  not  to  be  admitted  to  these  Roman 
Catholic  organizations,  what  is  left  to  them  but  to 
form  organizations  of  their  own  or  be  persecuted  as 
"  scabs  ?" 

Is  it  not  a  plan  to  grind  the  State  between  the 
Church  as  an  upper  and  the  Trade  Organization  as  a 
lower  millstone  ?  How  can  the  State  surrender  in 
effect  the  whole  control  of  its  industry  and  the  whole 
field  of  labor  to  this  papal,  international  organization 
of  priests? 


TOI 

What  an  important  part  such  priest-guided  labor 
organizations  would  play  in  politics  is  evident 
enough.  Many  recognize  that  the  political  units  of 
the  future  in  great  cities  will  be,  not  the  sub-divisions 
of  the  city  according  to  geographical  lines,  but  the 
groups  of  men  organized  according  to  their  trades 
and  professions  ;  the  author  would  refer  on  this 
point  to  "  Trade  Unions,"  by  William  Trant,  and 
to  the  author's  "  Trade  Unions  in  Politics.''  No 
one,  then,  can  charge  the  Papal  Church  with  lack 
of  foresight,  in  endeavoring  to  keep  these  future 
powers  under  her  control  and  "  clear  of  rulers 
whose  touch  denies."  In  Germany,  the  hundred 
thousand  members  of  the  Catholic  Labor  Unions  take 
part  in  politics  most  actively  as  such,  whenever  a 
question  arises  in  which  the  Church  is  interested. 

The  argument  of  the  Holy  Father  in  his  Labor 
Encyclical  to  prove  this  independence  of  the  trade- 
unions  from  the  State  is  as  follows :  "  These  lesser 
societies  and  the  society  which  constitute  the  State 
differ  in  many  things,  because  their  immediate 
purpose  and  end  is  different.  Civil  society  exists  for 
the  common  good,  and  therefore  is  concerned  with 
the  interests  of  all  in  general,  and  with  individual 
interest  in  their  due  place  and  proportion.  Hence, 
it  is  called  public  society,  because  by  its  means,  as 
St.  Thomas  of  Aquinas  says,  men  communicate  with 
one  another  in  the  setting  up  of  a  commonwealth. 
But  the  societies  which  are  formed  in  the  bosom  of 
the  State  are  called  private,  and  justly  so,  because 
their  immediate  purpose  is  the  private  advantage  of 
the  associates.  Now  a  private  society,  says  St. 


102   * 

Thomas  again,  is  one  which  is  formed  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  out  private  business,  as  when  two  or 
three  enter  into  a  partnership  with  a  view  of  trading 
in  conjunction." 

To  class  trade  organizations  with  business  part- 
nerships and  to  say  that  because  the  one  is  a  private 
organization  and  independent  of  the  State,  therefore 
the  other  ought  also  to  be  so,  is  not  very  convincing. 
The  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  one  long  story  of 
the  struggle  of  the  trade  organizations  to  take  part 
in  the  government ;  it  is  the  glory  of  Germanic  laws 
to  have  afforded  scope  for  this  desire,  instead  of 
crushing  it,  as  did  the  Roman  law,  which  latter  law 
the  Roman  Catholic  socialists  are  generally  so  fond 
of  denouncing.  See  Beseler  '  Deutsches  Privat- 
recht,"  p.  251. 

If  we  turn  now  from  this  particular  scheme  of 
Roman  Catholic  trade  unions,  to  the  general  teach- 
ings of  the  Church  on  social  questions,  how  are  they 
adapted  to  our  modern  civilization  ?  It  is  sub- 
mitted that  the  modern  communism,  against  which 
Leo  XIII.  so  frequently  inveighs  under  the  name  of 
Socialism,  is  practically  identical  in  its  fundamental 
principles  with  teachings  of  the  Church,  except  that 
it  disregards  the  sovereignty  of  the  successors  of 
St.  Peter. 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas  had  before  him  the  ideals  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle  and  accepted  their  Utopias  in 
principle  without  reserve ;  thus  he  says,  in  De 
Regimine  Principum  (lib.  IV.,  Cap.  X.) :  "  He  (Plato) 
divided  his  state  into  five  classes  of  men,  viz.:  princes, 
counsellors,  warriors,  mechanics  and  farmers.  This 
division  seems  sufficient  for  the  protection  of  the 


103 

State,  since  it  comprises  all  varieties  of  men  neces- 
sary to  a  political  government."  He  makes  substan- 
tially the  same  division  in  the  Summa  (I.,  II".,  9,  95, 
a.  4) :  "  Human  law  can  be  divided  according  to  the 
difference  of  those  who  devote  themselves  especially 
to  the  common  weal,  as  priests  who  pray  for  the 
people  to  God,  princes  who  rule  the  people  and 
soldiers  who  fight  for  the  safety  of  the  people  and 
therefore  to  these  men  certain  especial  rights  are 
due." 

This  whole  system  of  special  rights  or  privileges  was 
known  as  "  justitia  distributativa ''  as  opposed  to  the 
other  great  division  of  law  "justitia  commutativa" 
which  concerns  the  legal  relation  of  individuals  to 
each  other.  The  definition  of  distributive  justice, 
with  which  no  communist  would  quarrel  in  Summa 
II.,  II.,  q.  96,  i  a.  i,  is  as  follows  :  "  Or  again  we  have 
the  relation  of  the  whole  to  the  part ;  and  such  is  the 
relation  of  the  community  to  the  individual,  which 
relation  is  presided  over  by  distributive  justice  or 
the  justice  that  distributes  the  goods  of  the  common  stock 
according  to  proportion." 

The  authority  for  this  whole  system  of  distribu- 
tive or  class  justice  is  the  philosopher  Aristotle, 
who  is  continually  cited.  How  Aristotle  regarded 
this  class  system  can  be  seen  from  the  following 
extract  from  his  Politics  (Book  VII.,  Chap.  9): 
"  Now,  since  we  are  here  speaking  of  the  best  form 
of  government  and  that  under  which  the  State  will 
be  most  happy,  it  clearly  follows  that  in  the  State 
which  is  best  governed  the  citizens  who  are  abso- 
lutely and  merely  relatively  just  men  must  not  lead 


104 

the  life  of  mechanics  or  tradesmen,  for  such  a  life 
is  ignoble  and  inimical  to  virtue.  Neither  must 
they  be  husbandmen,  since  leisure  is  necessary 
both  for  the  development  of  virtue  and  the  per- 
formance of  political  duties.  Again,  there  is  in  a 
State  a  class  of  warriors  and  another  of  counsellors 
who  advise  about  the  expedient  and  determine  mat- 
ters of  law,  and  these  seem  in  an  especial  manner 
parts  of  a  State  .  .  .  whereas  mechanics  or  any 
other  class  whose  art  excludes  the  art  of  virtue  have 
no  other  share  in  the  State.  .  .  .  The  husbandmen 
will  of  necessity  be  slaves  or  barbarians  or  Perioeci. 

"  Of  the  classes  enumerated  there  remains  only  the 
priests,  and  the  manner  in  which  their  office  is  to  be 
regulated  is  obvious.  No  husbandman  or  mechanic 
should  be  appointed  to  it.  Now  since  the  body  of 
the  citizens  is  divided  into  two  classes,  the  warriors 
and  the  counsellors,  to  the  old  men  of  these  two  clas- 
ses should  be  assigned  the  duties  of  the  priesthood 
— husbandmen,  craftsmen  and  laborers  of  all  kinds 
are  necessary  to  the  existence  of  states,  but  the  parts 
of  the  State  are  the  warriors  and  counsellors.  And 
these  are  distinguished  severally  from  one  another, 
the  distinction  being  in  some  cases  permanent,  in 
others  not." 

Plato,  in  his  Republic,  as  is  well  known,  gave  the 
masses  no  share  in  the  government  and  considered 
them  unworthy  of  the  slightest  attention,  and  made 
a  similar  division  of  ruling  classes,  who  constituted 
the  actual  state.  ^. 

In  reading  these  lines  of  Aristotle,  do  we  not  seem 
to  hear  the  very  words  of  some  grand  seigneur  or  of 


some  aristocratic  abbe  of  the  Ancien  Regime  which, 
under  the  rule  of  the  Eldest  Son  of  the  Church  in 
France,  had  developed  so  successfully  the  doctrine  of 
several  estates,  with  their  caste-like  divisions  of  the 
people  ?  No  wonder  the  Roman  Catholics  are  loud 
in  their  denunciations  of  the  work  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  lavish  with  their  glowing  pictures 
of  the  "  good  old  times." 

Our  legal  system,  with  its  doctrine  of  equality  of 
all  before  the  law,  has  no  place  for  "  Distributive 
Justice."  Is  it  not  then  apparent  that  the  French 
Communists  were  orthodox  theologians?  They 
wanted  merely  a  share  of  "  the  goods  of  the  com- 
mon stock,''  and  only  differed  with  the  First  and 
Second  Estates  as  to  the  proportion  which  each 
should  receive. 

How  conversant  Leo  XIII.  was  with  this  principle 
of  division  of  a  people  into  classes  and  distributive 
justice  appears  by  the  following  extract  from  the 
Labor  Encyclical,  in  which  he  cites  the  chapter 
of  the  Summa  last  above  mentioned  :  "  To  cite  the 
wise  words  of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin :  As  the  part 
and  the  whole  are  in  a  certain  sense  identical,  the 
part  may  in  some  sense  claim  what  belongs  to 
the  whole.  Among  the  many  and  grave  duties  of 
rulers  who  would  do  their  best  for  the  people, 
the  first  and  chief  is  to  act  with  strict  justice — with 
that  justice  which  is  called  in  the  schools  distribu- 
tive— toward  each  and  every  class." 

This  idea  of  a  central  government  to  which  all 
classes  look  for  their  support  is  irradicably  ingrained 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  mediaeval  system  which  con- 


io6 

sidered  the  particular  government  of  the  "  Holy 
Roman  Empire,"  as  directly  instituted  by  God,  being 
symbolized  in  the  coronation  of  the  Emperor  by  the 
Pope  as  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  under  the  Em- 
peror every  official  held  office  by  Divine  Right. 
The  individual  was  consequently  absorbed  in  the 
whole;  as  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  says  in  Summa  II., II., 
q.  58,  a.  5:  "All  who  are  comprised  in  a  community 
stand  to  the  community  as  parts  to  the  whole  ;  now 
all  that  the  part  is,  belongs  to  the  whole  ;  hence 
everything  good  in  the  part  isreierrable  to  the  good 
of  the  whole ;  "  and  he  continues  in  the  same  chapter, 
article  ninth ;  "  the  common  good  is  the  aim  ot  all 
individuals  existing  in  a  community,  as  the  good  of 
the  whole  is  the  object  of  all  the  parts."  He  also 
frequently  reiterates  that  the  individual  exists  for 
the  good  of  the  species. 

Is  not  this  doctrine  the  same  as  that  of  the  most 
radical  Socialist,  who,  flying  to  the  opposite  ex- 
treme from  individualism,  would  merge  the  citizen 
completely  in  the  State,  and  treat  him  only  as  a  cell 
in  an  organism,  ignoring  his  personality  and  direct 
responsibility  to  a  Heavenly  Power?  Is  not  this 
system  the  extreme  of  paternalism  and  centralization, 
with  its  inevitable  deadening  of  all  individual  effort, 
from  which  our  government  is  supposed  to  be  a  di- 
rect revolt  ? 

All  Catholic  Socialists  unite  in  denouncing  Liber- 
alism and  in  repeating  the  boast  that  the  subjection 
of  rulers  and  nations  to  the  Papacy  would  result  in 
the  attainment  of  all  that  the  French  Revolution 
vainly  demanded. 


When  the  Count  de  Mun,  the  leader  of  one  of  the 
wings  of  French  Catholic  Socialists,  introduced  a 
bill  regulating  labor,  into  the  French  Parliament  in 
1890,  Ferroul,  the  Socialist  Deputy,  exclaimed  :  "I 
have  read  M.  de  Mun's  declarations,  and  together 
with  my  friends  cannot  but  commend  them  ;  his  de- 
mands are  in  reality  identical  with  those  formulated 
by  the  Socialist  Congresses." 

On  the  other  hand,  Baron  von  Vogelsang,  the 
leader  of  the  Austrian  Catholic  Socialists,  laments 
that  the  French  Revolution  overthrew  the  old  social 
order  which  rested  on  the  fundamental  principles 
that  all  property  should  be  as  a  part  of  the  common 
fortune  of  the  nation,  granted  for  private  enjoyment 
in  exchange  for  services  rendered  to  the  community. 
(See  the  Association  Catholique,  May,  1888.) 

Nitti  in  his  Catholic  Socialism  (p.  29)  states  cor- 
rectly :  "  All  the  great  Catholic  economists,  as  Von 
Ketteler,  Hitze,  Weiss,  De  Mun,  De  Curtins,  hold 
that  so-called  economic  liberty  is  an  iniquitous 
principle,  contrary  to  all  the  laws  of  Christianity." 

The  greatest  Roman  Catholic  publicist  of  this 
century,  De  Maistre  following  Aquinas  and  Aristotle, 
(in  his  "  Essai  sur  le  principe  generateur  and  Soirees 
de  St.  Petersburg  "),  claimed  that  the  nobility  as  a 
separate  class  with  all  its  privileges,  was  a  divine 
institution  with  which  it  was  impious  to  interfere. 

One  of  the  main  causes  of  the  dissatisfaction 
among  the  subjects  of  the  Pope,  while  he  still  had 
temporal  power,  was  that  the  priests  constituted  a 
privileged  caste ;  see  the  citation  from  Dr.  D611- 
inger's  description  of  the  Papal  State,  in  the  first 


io8 

chapter  of  this  book.  In  the  Province  of  Quebec  in 
Canada,  ever  since  the  "  Customs  of  Paris  "  were  re- 
stored in  1774,  the  class  distinctions  and  extensive 
legal  privileges  of  the  clergy,  which  existed  in 
France  before  the  Revolution,  have  been  continued. 
The  many  bloody  revolutions  in  Mexico  were  only 
struggles  to  overcome  the  tyranny  of  the  priests 
and  soldiers,  whose  claims  to  be  tried  in  special 
courts  of  their  own,  composed  exclusively  of  either 
clergy  or  officers,  was  most  strongly  supported  by 
the  Church  ;  see  the  article  in  the  North  American 
Review  for  January.  1896,  by  the  Mexican  Minister 
at  Washington,  on  the  "  Philosophy  of  Mexican 
Revolutions. " 

All  therefore  who  believe  that  society  exists  for 
men,  and  not  men  for  society,  and  in  the  equality  of 
all  before  the  law  should  oppose  this  Church  Social- 
ism, which  calls  upon  the  Fourth  Estate  to  undo  the 
work  of  the  Third  Estate  in  the  French  Revolution, 
not  only  that  it  may  introduce  a  rigid  mediaeval 
communism,  but  also  that  it  may  restore  the  First 
and  Second  Estates  to  their  former  positions. 

There  is  another  objection  to  Roman  Catholic 
Socialism  which  will  be  better  understood  after  a 
perusal  of  the  chapter  on  the  Church  and  the  Indi- 
vidual, in  its  denial  of  the  existence  of  the  spiritual 
part  of  man's  nature.  The  consequence  is  that  even 
while  men  remain  good  Roman  Catholics  and  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Church,  they  are  thrown  too 
much  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  wants  of  their  entire 
being  upon  the  physical  and  intellectual  treasures  of 
this  world,  and  when  once  they  throw  off  the  control 


109 

of  the  Church,  as  has  been  the  case  in  all  countries 
with  the  spread  of  education,  they  become  too  eager 
in  the  pursuit  of  that  which  will  please  their  senses, 
regardless  of  the  claims  of  their  higher  or  spiritual 
nature. 

Over  thirty  years  ago,  Bishop  Ketteler  declared 
from  his  cathedral  at  Mayence :  "  The  Social  Ques, 
tion  is  a  stomach  question  "  (Nitti,  Catholic  Social- 
ism, p.  355).  The  teachings  of  Roman  Catholic 
philosophy  are,  as  will  be  shown  hereafter,  that  men 
are  simply  physical  and  sentient  organisms,  and  the 
result  of  such  teachings  is  always  practically  a 
materialism,  identical  with  that  of  the  extreme  com- 
munist. The  eagerness  with  which  that  part  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  clergy  which  was  least  bound  by 
the  Papal  authority,  took  up  the  Henry  George 
movement  and  defended  it  on  theological  grounds, 
may  serve  as  an  example  to  show  how  naturally 
Roman  Catholics  become  communists,  so  soon  as 
the  restraint  from  above  is  relaxed.  Mr.  George's 
book,  by  the  way,  has  never  been  put  upon  the 
Index.  The  most  extreme  and  dangerous  com- 
munists are  the  products  of  Roman  Catholic 
countries ;  see  Flint's  Socialism  (p.  449). 

If  Leo  XIII.  is  right  in  the  statement  which  he 
lays  down  in  the  Encyclical  on  Labor  (above  cited) 
that  "  the  first  and  chief  duty  "  of  a  ruler  is  "  dis- 
tributive justice," — /.  e.,  the  distribution  of  the 
goods  which  constitute  the  common  stock,  to  the 
various  classes,  how  does  he  differ  in  principle  from 
St.  Simon  or  any  other  communist,  except  that  in 
his  trade  unions  "no  Protestant  need  apply"?  Is 


no 

not  this  exclusive  spirit  the  severest  charge  against 
the  A.  P.  A.?  In  brief,  his  plan  is  a  priest-ruled  com- 
munism ;  of  which  good  practical  illustrations  are 
found  in  the  history  of  the  Jesuit  colony  of  Para- 
guay or  of  the  Missions  of  Mexico  ;  their  civilization 
consisted  of  priests  and  peons. 

If  the  priest,  will  but,  like  the  cobbler,  "stick  to 
his  last "  and  attend  to  the  development  of  man's 
spiritual  nature,  instead  of  attempting  the  direct 
government  of  the  world,  in  its  minutest  details, 
the  germ  of  sympathy  in  the  heart  of  every  man 
would  blossom  out  into  such  love  of  neighbor  that 
organizations  of  employers  and  employees  acting 
together  in  harmony  (as  set  out  in  the  author's 
"  Trade  Organizations  in  Religion  ")  would  make  us 
soon  forget  that  there  had  ever  been  a  social 
question. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  CHURCH  AND   THE  FAMILY. 

Having  shown  in  the  preceding  chapters  how  the 
rights  of  the  State  would  be  ground  down  between 
the  Church  and  the  Workingmen's  Guild,  acting  like 
an  upper  and  nether  millstone,  let  us  now  consider 
whether  there  is  a  third  institution  which  would 
still  further  lessen  these  rights. 

The  following  extract  from  the  Encyclical  of  Leo 
XIII.  on  Labor  speaks  for  itself:  "A  family,  no 
less  than  a  State,  is,  as  we  have  said,  a  true  society 
governed  by  a  power  within  itself,  that  is  to  say  by 
the  Father.  Wherefore,  provided  the  limits  be  not 
transgressed  which  are  prescribed  by  the  very  pur- 
poses for  which  it  exists,  the  Family  has  at  least 
equal  rights  with  the  State  in  the  choice  and  pursuit 
of  those  things  which  are  needful  to  its  preservation 
and  its  just  liberty.  We  say,  at  least  equal  rights  ; 
for  since  the  domestic  household  is  anterior  both  in 
idea  and  fact  to  the  gathering  of  men  into  a  common- 
wealth, the  former  must  necessarily  have  rights  and 
duties  which  are  prior  to  those  of  the  latter,  and 
which  rest  more  immediately  on  nature.  If  the 
citizens  of  a  State,  that  is  to  say,  the  Families  on  en- 
tering into  association  and  fellowship,  experienced 
at  the  hands  of  the  State  hindrance  instead  of  help, 
and  found  their  rights  attacked  instead  of  being  pro- 
tected, such  association  was  rather  to  be  repudiated 


112 

than  sought  after.  The  idea  then,  that  the  civil 
government  should,  at  its  own  discretion,  penetrate 
and  pervade  the  Family  and  the  household,  is  a 
great  and  pernicious  mistake  and  to  speak  with  strict- 
ness, the  child  takes  its  place  in  civil  society  not  in 
its  own  right,  but  in  its  quality  as  a  member  of  the 
Family  in  which  it  is  begotten.  And  it  is  for  the 
very  reason  that  '  The  child  belongs  to  the  Father,' 
that,  as  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin  says :  '  Before  it  at- 
tains the  use  of  free  will,  it  is  in  the  power  and  care 
of  its  parents '  (St.  Thomas's  Summa  Theologiae4 
II.,  II.,  q.  10,  a.  12)." 

The  theory  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  on  the  Family 
is  set  out  more  at  length  in  the  Summa  I.,  II.,  q  105,  a. 
4,  where  his  conclusion  is  as  follows :  "  Concerning 
domestic  persons  which  are  either  servant  and  mas- 
ter, or  man  and  wife,  or  finally  father  and  child, 
the  Old  Testament  gave  precepts,  rightly  and  con- 
veniently for  the  preservation  of  human  life." 

The  important  part  which  the  Family  and  Tribe 
played  in  Jewish  history,  preceding  the  organization 
of  the  State,  is  well  known  ;  and  in  most  of  the  Greek 
cities,  men  bound  together  by  ties  of  blood,  were 
important  political  factors  in  their  early  history.  See 
Aristotle's  Politics  I.,  2.  It  is  therefore  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  St.  Thomas  should  place  the 
Family  as  a  society  on  an  equality  with  the  State, 
as  he  does  in  Comm.  in  Lib.  Ethic.Aristot.,  Lect.  L, 
L.  I.,  making  the  State,  the  Family,  and  the  Indi- 
vidual the  three  subdivisions  of  moral  philosophy. 
He  concludes :  "  And  hence  it  is  that  moral  philos- 
ophy is  divided  into  three  parts.  Of  which  one 


H3 

treats  of  the  intentional  acts  of  a  single  man,  which 
is  called  monastica ;  but  the  second  considers  the 
operation  of  a  domestic  group,  which  is  called  cecono- 
mica ;  but  the  third  considers  the  operations  of  a 
civil  group,  which  is  called  political 

As  the  Supreme  Pontiff  is  the  infallible  guide  in 
all  matters  of  morals,  it  is  really  unnecessary  to  say 
anything  more  to  show  that  in  all  matters  relating 
to  family  life,  as  a  part  of  the  domain  of  morals,  the 
Church  has  the  deciding  voice  and  the  State  can  act 
only  on  sufferance  ;  particularly  is  this  plainly  de- 
clared with  regard  to  the  marriage  relation,  which 
is  the  foundation  of  family  life.  In  the  Encyclical  of 
Leo  XIII.,  issued  February  loth,  1880,  on  Marriage 
and  Divorce  (printed  in  the  London  Tablet),  he  says  : 

"  Then,  to  make  sure  that  such  singular  blessings 
should  remain  on  earth  as  long  as  mankind  itself, 
He  established  the  Church  as  the  Dispenser  of  His 
gifts,  and,  foreseeing  the  future  He  ordained  that 
she  should  regulate  all  disturbances  in  human  socie- 
ty, and  reestablish  whatever  might  fall  into  decay. 

.  .  .  Jesus  Christ,  then,  when  he  had  again  restored 
marriage  to  such  great  perfection,  remitted  and 
entrusteditsentire  disposition  to  the  Church.  The 
Church,  in  fact,  exercised  this  power  over  the 
marriages  of  Christians,  in  all  times  and  in  all  places ; 
she  exercised  it  in  such  a  manner  that  it  could  easily 
be  seen  that  this  power  was  her  own ;  that  it  did  not 
come  to  her  through  the  consent  of  men,  but  that 
she  had  come  by  it  by  the  divine  will  of  her 
Author.  .  .  . 

"  It  was  then  with  full  jurisdiction  that  the  Council 


of  Trent  defined  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  Church 
to  establish  invalidating  impediments  and  that  matri- 
monial causes  should  come  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  ecclesiastical  tribunals. 

"  Nor  must  any  one  allow  himself  to  be  moved  by 
that  distinction,  or  rather  sundering,  proclaimed  by 
royal  civilians,  which  consists  in  separating  the 
nuptial  contract  from  the  Sacrament,  leaving  the 
Sacrament  to  the  Church,  and  giving  the  contract 
over  to  temporal  princes. 

"  Therefore  neither  does  reason  prove,  nor  does 
history,  which  is  the  witness  of  the  times,  give  testi- 
mony that  authority  over  Christain  marriage  has 
ever  been  given  over  to  temporal  princes.  And  if 
the  rights  of  any  one  have  been  violated  in  this 
manner,  no  one  can  ever  say  that  the  Church  violated 
them. 

"  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Jesus  Christ,  the  Foun- 
der of  the  Church,  desired  the  religious  authority 
to  be  distinct  from  the  civil  authonty,  and  that  each, 
be  free  in  the  fulfilment  of  its  mission ;  it  must, 
however,  be  added,  that  it  is  useful  to  both,  as  it  is 
to  the  interest  of  all  men,  that  union  and  concord 
exist  between  them  and  that  in  such  questions  as 
from  divers  reasons,  are  common  to  the  laws  and 
jurisdictions  ot  both,  the  one  to  whom  human  affairs 
have  been  entrusted  should  justly  and  reasonably 
depend  upon  the  one  having  the  guardianship  of 
heavenly  things.  By  this  arrangament  and  agree- 
ment not  only  is  a  perfect  organization  of  each 
power  arrived  at,  but  also  the  most  opportune  and 
the  most  efficacious  means  of  securing  the  happiness 


of  the  human  race  in  regard  to  our  conduct  in  this 
life  and  to  the  hope  of  eternal  salvation. 

"  Devote  your  zeal  and  your  energies  that  the 
people  may  abundantly  receive  the  precepts  of 
Christian  wisdom  and  that  they  may  ever  bear  in 
mind  that  marriage  was  established  not  by  the  will 
of  men  but  by  authority  of  God,  and  that  its  funda- 
mental law  is  to  unite  one  with  one  only,  that  Christ 
the  Author  of  the  new  Alliance,  transformed  into  a 
Sacrament  that  which  was  merely  an  act  of  nature, 
and  in  so  much  as  concerns  the  bond,  he  has  trans- 
mitted to  his  Church  the-  power  of  legislating  and 
passing  judgment  upon  it.  It  is  necessary  to  be  very 
watchful  on  this  point,  and  to  see  that  minds  be  not 
misled  into  error  by  the  deceitful  theories  of  enemies 
who  seek  to  rob  the  Church  of  this  power." 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  Encyclical  is  quite  vague 
in  stating  the  ground  for  its  claim  of  authority  in 
favor  of  the  Church  in  matrimonial  matters  as  in 
fact  none  can  be  found ;  but  His  Holiness  insists 
that  the  State  must  prove  its  title  to  such  right,  and 
should  depend  upon  the  Church  in  such  matters, 
as  in  all  others  which  are  subject  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  both. 

How  faithfully  and  boldly  these  doctrines  are 
taught,  even  in  this  country,  may  appear  from  the 
following  extract  from  two  leading  Roman  Catholic 
writers.  Thus  Father  Jouin,  S.  J.,  Professor  at  St. 
John's  College,  Fordham,  writes  in  his  "  Elementa 
Philosophise  Moralis  '  (p.  181):  "  Matrimonial  society 
was  instituted  by  God  and  its  nature  was  determined 
by  him ;  therefore,  it  does  not  depend  on  civil  soci- 


ety.  Matrimonial  society  antedates  civil  society ; 
since  civil  society  grew  from  the  union  of  families 
into  one  community,  and  the  whole  human  race 
traces  its  origin  from  one  family.  Therefore,  nature 
and  the  rights  of  matrimonial  society  were  already 
existing  before  civil  society  existed.  Therefore,  so 
far  as  the  nature  of  matrimonial  society  and  its  prin- 
cipal rights  are  concerned,  the  civil  authority  can 
establish  nothing.  Moreover,  the  family  fully  con- 
stituted and  endowed  into  all  its  rights,  enters  civil 
society ;  therefore,  civil  society  is  to  protect  the 
rights  of  the  family,  not  to  create  or  change  them.  .  . 
The  right  of  contracting  marriage  is  derived  by 
man  from  nature,  independently  of  the  civil  authority. 
Therefore,  the  right  cannot  be  taken  away  by  the 
civil  authority.  But  it  is  taken  away  if  impediments 
to  marriage  are  created  by  the  civil  authorities; 
therefore,  the  latter  cannot  create  impediments  to 
marriage  .  .  .  matrimony  is  a  Sacrament  in  the 
New  Testament.  The  Church  in  the  Sacrament  can 
change  nothing  which  pertains  to  the  subject  of  the 
Sacrament,  since  the  Sacraments  were  instituted  by 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  but  it  has  the  power  of  de- 
creeing those  things  which  are  necessary  to  rightly 
receiving  and  administrating  the  Sacrament.  If, 
therefore,  the  Church  decrees  that  certain  persons  in 
certain  cases  are  not  proper  to  partake  of  the  Sacra- 
ment, then  their  marriage  is  not  valid  ;  for  according 
to  the  New  Testament  there  is  no  marriage  where 
there  is  no  Sacrament.  Marriages,  therefore,  which 
are  not  recognized  by  the  Church  are  null  and  void 
before  God,  although  the  civil  law  declares  them 


ii; 

valid.  On  the  contrary,  if  a  marriage  is  recognized 
by  the  Church,  although  the  civil  law  declares  it  in- 
valid, it  is  and  remains  valid  in  spite  of  the  civil 
law." 

The  independence  of  the  Family  of  the  State  is 
declared  with  equal  courage  by  Father  Nicolaus 
Russo,  S.  J.,  in  his  "  De  Philosophia  Morali  Praelec- 
tiones,"  printed  with  the  approbation  of  the  Vicar- 
General  of  this  diocese  in  1890  (p.  216) :  "  If,  there- 
fore, it  is  unlawful  to  bring  civil  authority  into  any 
marriage — in  regard  to  the  Christian  marriage,  this 
must  be  called  not  only  illegal  but  impious."  On 
page  236,  he  also  declares  that  one  cannot  doubt 
that  persons,  not  separate,  but  as  families  entered 
society,  and  that  it  is  absurd  to  consider  the  State  as 
a  source  of  all  rights  (p.  215);  here  the  author  is  of 
course  again  following  Aristotle  (Politics,  I.,  2). 

In  the  relation  of  parent  and  child,  the  Church 
draws  a  conclusion  of  no  less  practical  importance 
than  that  above  advanced  on  the  marriage  relation, 
from  the  alleged  independence  of  the  Family  of  the 
State;  i.  e.,  the  right  of  the  parent  to  direct  the  edu- 
cation of  his  children,  free  from  the  control  of  the 
State.  This  claim  rests  ultimately  on  the  theory  of 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  announced  in  Summa  II.,  II.  q. 
10,  a.  12  (above  cited),  that  the  law  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment still  governs  the  family  life ;  thus  he  says  in 
Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  105,  a.  4:  "  Concerning  sons,  it  (the 
Old  Testament)  instituted  that  fathers  should  teach 
them,  by  instructing  them  in  the  faith  ;  whence  it 
is  said  in  Exodus  12  :  '  When  your  sons  shall  say  to 
you,  what  is  this  service  ?  You  shall  say  to  them  : 


n8 

it  is  the  sacrifice  of  the  passover  of  the  Lord.  And 
also  that  they  should  instruct  them  in  morals.' 

Father  Jouin,  of  St.  Johns  College,  in  his  Elementa 
Philosophise  Moralis  argues  in  the  same  spirit  (p. 
314) :  "  The  right  of  educating  the  youth  belongs  to 
the  parent,  who,  since  they  give  being  to  it  must 
also  perfect  it.  But  the  duty  of  educating  the  youth 
and  the  rights  of  parent  are  independent  ot  civil 
society  (citing  the  passage  above  quoted  from  the 
same  book).  Therefore  parents  cannot  be  deprived 
of  this  right  by  the  civil  authority." 

Father  Russo,  in  his  De  Philosophise  Morali  Prae- 
lectiones  (above  cited),  following  the  same  theory  of 
the  independence  of  the  Family,  on  page  221  sums 
up  as  follows  :  "  The  duty  and  consequently  the 
right  of  educating  the  youth  (i)  rests  on  the  parent. 
Therefore  (2)  the  State  cannot  claim  this  right  ;  and 
much  less  (3)  compel  parents  to  send  their  children 
to  so-called  public  schools." 

Of  course  this  right  of  the  parent  is  claimed  only 
for  the  purpose  of  asserting  that  the  parent  can 
delegate  it  to  the  Church  and  exclude  the  State  from 
even  such  control  as  is  required  to  see  that  the  child 
is  brought  up  with  the  knowledge  which  is  neces- 
sary to  make  it  a  useful  and  patriotic  citizen  ,  see 
the  article  by  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  in  the  Century 
Magazine  of  April,  1895.  Where  the  Church  is  not 
yet  all  powerful,  it  is  true  that  to  the  State  is  con- 
ceded some  supervision,  but  this  decreases  as  the 
power  of  the  Church  increases,  until  to  the  State  is 
left  only  the  duty  of  collecting  the  taxes  to  pay  the 
clerical  instructors. 


H9- 

Into  the  merits  of  Roman  Catholic  education  it  is 
unnecessary  here  to  enter ;  according-  to  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Brittanica,  in  Spain  there  are  82  schools  to 
every  1,000  inhabitants,  and  yet  72  per  cent,  of  the 
population  can  neither  read  or  write.  According  to 
the  same  authority,  in  Italy,  in  1861,  before  the 
invasion  of  the  Piedmontese  Robber,  nearly  80  per 
cent,  were  "  analphabetes."  Any  one  who  has  trav- 
eled in  Roman  Catholic  countries  needs  no  statistics 
to  tell  him  of  the  alarming  illiteracy  there  prevailing. 
When  the  author  was  at  Bolsano,  near  Rome,  the 
richest  man  in  the  place,  the  innkeeper,  told  him  that 
his  daughter  had  completed  her  education  at  a 
neighboring  convent,  but  no  attempt  was  made  to 
teach  her  to  read  or  write. 

The  most  popular  Lenten  preacher  at  Rome  in 
the  chief  Jesuit  Church  very  recently  declared  that 
women  ought  not  to  be  taught  to  read  or  write,  be- 
cause they  would  only  use  this  knowledge  to  write 
letters  to  their  lovers  after  they  were  married. 

How  easily  any  supervision,  even  when  the  right 
to  prescribe  the  text  books  to  be  used  is  expressly 
reserved  to  the  State,  can  be  rendered  nugatory,  is 
frankly  stated  by  Cardinal  Satolli  in  the  "  North 
American  Review"  for  December,  1894,  in  an  article 
entitled  "  The  Catholic  School  System  in  Rome  ": 

"  It  (the  Directive  Council  appointed  by  the  Pope 
to  supervise  Roman  Catholic  education  in  Rome) 
therefore  selects  the  text  books  with  the  greatest 
circumspection,  and  when  it  has  been  compelled  by 
law  to  adopt  any  one  which  is  erroneous  or  lack- 
ing in  principle,  it  has  strictly  enjoined  the  pro- 


I2O 

fessors  to  make  the  necessary  corrections  and  obser- 
vations when  explaining  the  same.  For  example,  in 
the  official  text-books  of  national  history  no  reference 
is  made  to  the  gigantic  and  magnanimous  struggle 
sustained  by  Christian  society  in  honor  and  defence 
of  religion  and  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  as  well  as  in 
defence  of  the  Fatherland  and  of  Italian  culture.  .  .  . 
Catholic  Teaching  modifies  and  corrects  errors  and 
opinion  in  such  a  way  that  the  historic  truth  may 
stand  out  with  the  utmost  clearness.  For  the  Church 
fears  only  error." 

Verily,  the  end  justifies  the  means! 

How  far  one  may  go  in  distorting  history  and 
suppressing  facts,  to  gain  control  of  schools,  is 
shown  by  a  Review  of  the  Manitoba  School  Ques- 
tion, published  by  the  Winnipeg  Tribune,  entitled 
"  Is  Manitoba  Right  ?" 

That  so  important  a  claim  as  that  to  the  whole 
secular  education  should  be  based  today  ultimately 
upon  the  command  given  by  God  to  the  Children 
of  Israel  when  about  to  journey  through  the  Desert, 
on  one  point  of  ceremomcal  law,  seems  a  little  extra- 
ordinary ;  but  no  less  extraordinary  is  this  whole 
claim  for  the  independence  of  the  Family  from  the 
State.  Certainly  no  one  can  glance  at  our  state  or 
federal  Constitutions  without  perceiving  that  our  gov- 
ernments were  in  no  way  formed  by  families,  and  that 
the  Family,  as  such,  possesses  no  rights  or  privileges. 
Our  legislature  is  supposed  to  be  all  powerful,  ex- 
cept so  far  as  expressly  limited,  by  our  state  or 
national  constitutions.  As  Justice  Ward,  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  this  State,  expressly  decided  in  the 


121 

case  of  St.  Adalbert's  Church  (as  cited  in  the  Catholic 
Union  and  Times  of  July  i8th,  1895):  "Independent 
of  statutory  requirements,  the  canon  law  of  the 
Roman  Church  is  without  force  or  authority  in  this 
country." 

If  the  Family  is  of  such  great  importance  to  the 
State,  as  it  undoubtedly  is,  can  the  State  be  entirely 
indifferent  to  it  ? 

It  is  moreover  hard  to  understand  how  a  consistent 
Roman  Catholic  can  reconcile  his  duty  as  laid  down 
by  the  above  cited  papal  decrees  with  the  allegiance 
which  he  swears  to  the  law  of  the  State.  Is  he  to 
recognize  a  marriage  which  has  been  lawfully 
entered  into  according  to  the  laws  of  the  State,  but 
not  according  to  the  rules  of  the  Church  ? 

Nor  is  it  to  be  presumed  that  his  fellow  citizens 
of  other  beliefs  will  look  kindly  upon  teachings 
which  echo  the  words  of  Pius  IX.,  pronounced  before 
the  Apostolic  Chancery  (Discorsi  del  sommo  Pontifici 
Pius  IX.,  p.  193):  "But,  thanks  to  God,  the  mar- 
riage celebrated  only  by  the  civil  authorities,  with- 
out the  intervention  of  the  Church,  is  held  for  what 
it  truly  is,  a  mere  concubinage  (uno  pretto  con- 
cubinato)." 

If  we  turn  to  the  third  family  relation,  that  of 
master  and  servant,  we  find  that  St.  Thomas  expressly 
recognizes  the  propriety  of  slavery  as  it  existed 
under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation ;  he  par- 
ticularly discusses,  in  the  article  above  cited  (Summa 
I.,  II.,  q.  105,  a.  4),  whether  any  penalty  should  be 
inflicted  upon  a  master  who  punishes  his  man  or 
maid  servant  so  severely  that  he  or  she  dies  within 


122 

a  few  days  after  receiving  the  chastisement  and 
comes  to  a  negative  conclusion. 

The  Angelic  Doctor  recognizes  slavery  as  a  natural 
institution  in  many  other  places,  such  as  Summa,  II., 
II. ,  q.  57,  a.  3,  where  he  cites  Aristotle's  Politics  as 
authority  for  the  proposition  that  it  is  useful  for  a 
man  to  be  the  slave  of  one  who  is  wiser.  Aristotle's 
opinion  was  expressed  in  full  as  follows  (I.  Politics, 
c.  5) :  "  It  is  clear  then,  that  some  men  are  by  nature 
free,  and  others  slaves,  and  that  for  these  latter 
slavery  is  both  expedient  and  right."  We  need 
not,  therefore,  be  surprised  that  Father  Jouin,  of  St. 
John's  College,  in  his  Elementa  Philosophise  Moralis, 
makes  an  elaborate  defense  of  slavery  (pp.  195  to 
203).  Thus  he  says  in  paragraph  25  :  "  Therefore 
the  duty  of  giving  all  of  one's  exterior  work  to 
another  is  not  against  natural  law.  .  .  .  There- 
fore slavery,  properly  so  called,  is  not  against  natural 
law." 

It  is  curious  to  consider  whether,  ii  one  institu- 
tion of  natural  law  is  as  holy  and  as  little  to  be 
interfered  with  by  the  State  as  another,  all  the 
anethemas  which  have  been  leveled  against  those 
who  dared  to  interfere  with  the  relation  of  parent 
and  child  and  husband  and  wife,  as  sanctioned  by 
natural  law,  do  not  apply  with  equal  force  to  those 
who  have  abolished  the  institution  of  master  and 
slave  which  has  at  least  an  equal  sanction  of  levitical 
and  natural  law. 

The  connection  between  "  Romanism  "  and  "  Re- 
bellion "  would  therefore  not  seem  so  incredible. 

If  on  the  other  hand  slavery,  though  justified  by 


123 

natural  law,  could  be  destroyed,  may  not  the  State 
interfere  with  other  institutions  which  are  alleged  to 
have  the  same  high  sanction,  such  as  the  Family  and 
the  Guild,  when  they  have  become  oppressive  and 
unsuited  to  the  times  ? 

How  little  the  Church  itself  regards  the  Family, 
when  it  is  to  the  Church's  interest  so  to  do,  appears 
for  example,  in  the  Regulations  concerning  the 
Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  laid  down  by  Leo  XIII. 
(Leonis  Papae  XIII.  Allocutiones,  vol.  I.,  p.  13), 
which  provide  that  wives  may  be  admitted  to  that 
order,  even  against  the  will  of  the  husbands,  if  their 
confessors  consent.  How  can  the  Christian  ideal, 
that  "the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife,  even  as 
Christ  is  the  head  of  the  Church  "  (Ephesians,  v.  23), 
be  carried  into  effect  if  every  moral,  i.  e.,  intentional 
or  rational  act  of  the  wife  is  subject  to  the  control 
of  another  ?  Do  the  hybrid  populations  of  Central 
and  South  America,  where  the  Church  has  had  full 
control  of  the  marriage  relation,  or  the  decadent 
royal  families  of  the  Bourbons,  Wittelsbachs  or 
Hapsburgs  speak  so  well  for  its  practical  manage- 
ment of  this  relation  ? 

In  short,  should  not  the  priesthood,  especially  a 
celibate  priesthood,  keep  its  hands  off  the  Family, 
as  well  as  off  the  State,  and  even  in  matters  of  educa- 
tion should  it  not  remember  that  its  first  duty  is  to 
educate  the  spirit  or  conscience,  and  only  when  that 
is  accomplished,  should  it  devote  its  surplus  energy 
to  the  education  of  the  intellect  ? 

May  it  not  be  that  this  ill  success  is  in  part  due  to 
the  philosophy  of  Aquinas  and  Aristotle  which,  as  set 


124 

forth  in  the  next  chapter,  holds  that  individuals  are 
composed  merely  of  body  and  intellect  ?  This  theory 
denies  to  women  the  possession  of  those  intuitive  or 
spiritual  faculties,  in  which  she  surpasses  man  and 
by  which  she  is  intended  to  develop  and  expand  also 
in  him  the  same  organs,  from  their  natural  rudimen- 
tary condition  to  a  growth  and  strength  comparable 
to  her  own.  To  deny  to  women  the  possession  of 
these  faculties  is  to  rob  her  of  her  chief  glory  and 
individuality,  and  to  justify  the  mercenary  contracts 
of  marriage,  so  prevalent  in  southern  Europe,  where 
the  property  of  the  parties  is  considered  of  so  much 
more  importance  than  their  personal  qualifications 
and  inclinations.  It  is  submitted  that  the  union  of 
this  spiritual  part  of  man  and  woman  constitutes  the 
main  object  of  matrimony,  and  that,  when  this  union 
of  spirits  is  blessed  and  invigorated  by  God's  Holy 
Spirit,  it  becomes  a  new  entity  as  really  one, 
as  the  asexual  monad  with  which,  according  to 
the  Darwinian  theory,  animal  life  began ;  so  that 
the  cycle  of  development  which  commences  with 
physical  unity  and  continues  through  generations 
of  beings,  sexually  differentiated,  is  concluded  in  the 
Christian  era,  by  a  spiritual  union,  guided  and  blessed 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  intended  for  eternity. 

The  light  condemnation  of  sexual  sins,  so  often 
urged  against  the  Jesuits  and  other  Thomists,  may 
also  be  charged  to  the  philosophic  disregard  of  this 
spiritual  part  of  men  and  women,  with  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  may  directly  communicate.  Aquinas 
was  confined  in  his  argument  for  sexual  purity  to  the 
claim  that  the  offspring  of  illicit  unions  would  not 


125 

be  properly  cared  for,  and  he  expressly  declares  that 
illicit  intercourse  is  a  carnal  and  not  a  spiritual  sin, 
and  not  a  sin  directly  against  God(Summa,II.,  II.,  q. 
154,  a.  3),  thereby  putting  violations  of  the  law  of 
sexual  purity — that  law  which  constitutes  the  great 
cornerstone  of  happy  '  martrimony — among  the 
lightest  offences  and  in  no  way  as  a  sin  particularly 
against  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  yet  Chapter  VI.  of 
St.  Paul's  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  of 
which  Aquinas  considered  several  verses  in  the 
article  last  above  cited,  closes  with  the  emphatic 
lines,  as  given  in  the  Douay  version  :  "  Or  know  you 
not,  that  your  members  are  the  temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  who  is  in  you,  whom  you  have  from  God  and 
you  are  not  your  own  ?  For  you  are  bought  with  a 
great  price.  Glorify  and  bear  God  in  your  body." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  CHURCH  AND    THE  INDIVIDUAL. 

In  order  to  understand  the  relation  of  the  Church 
to  the  Individual,  we  must  first  consider  the  Roman 
Catholic  definition  of  the  latter. 

In  the  Encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.,  in  honor  of  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  he  praises  particularly  the  latter's 
treatment  "  of  man  and  the  senses,  of  human  acts 
and  their  principles."  Turning  then  to  the  works 
of  the  Patron  Saint  of  all  Roman  Catholic  Schools 
and  Colleges,  we  find,  as  already  set  forth  in 
the  first  chapter,  that  the  soul  is  the  form  of  a 
man  (Summa  I.,  q.  76,  a.  4),  i.  e.,  that  by  which  a 
human  being  is,  moves  and  exists.  This  human 
form  reasons  and  is,  therefore,  distinguished  as 
forma  rationalis  from  the  form  of  plants,  which  is 
called  forma  vegetativa,  and  from  the  form  of  animals, 
which  is  called  forma  sensitiva.  In  fact,  the  Council 
of  Vienne,  as  set  forth  in  the  first  chapter,  has  raised 
this  scholastic  definition  to  a  matter  of  faith,  by  con- 
demning as  a  heretic  any  one  who  should  deny  that 
"  the  rational  or  intellectual  soul  is  not  the  form  of 
a  human  body." 

This  definition,  as  is  well  known,  was  only  follow- 
ing Aristotle's  teaching,  e.  g.,  in  his  Politics  I.,  5  ; 
Boethius  had  already  repeated  it,  by  calling  a  person 
"  an  individual  substance  of  a  rational  nature ;  " 
it  reappears  in  the  CEcumenical  Council  of  the 

ia6 


127 

Lateran  V.  (1512),  "  anima  rationalis  est  pars  et  forma 
substantialis  hominis,  radix  omnium  proprietatum, 
ominum  operationum,  ex  qua  et  corpore  constitutum 
substantia  humana." 

This  definition,  it  will  be  found,  has  been  adhered 
to  with  customary  fidelity  by  the  writers  on  psychol- 
ogy of  the  now  ruling  Jesuit  School  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Thus  Dr.  Plassman,  the  Theo- 
logical Lecturer  in  Rome,  in  his  Psychology  (p.  207), 
says :  "  For  the  rational  soul  is  in  fact  the  sub- 
stantial form  of  man  and  the  human  body.  .  .  . 
The  substantial  form  is  the  radical  principle  of  being 
and  consequently  of  action."  Father  Maher,  S.  J.,  in 
the  Psychology  of  the  Stonyhurst  series  of  Catholic 
Manuals  of  Philosophy  (p.  521),  declares:  "A  person 
may  accordingly  be  defined  in  scholastic  language 
as  a  suppositum  of  a  rational  nature  or  an  individual 
substance  of  a  rational  nature."  This  theory  is 
defended  with  his  customary  vigor  by  Liberatore  in 
his  work  on  Universals  (translated  by  Bering),  page 
108,  where  the  statement  of  the  same  doctrine  by 
Pius  IX.  is  set  forth. 

Into  the  merits  of  this  definition  it  is  not  neces- 
sary here  to  enter  ;  the  citations  are  given  merely 
to  show  that  the  reasoning  soul  is  the  form  of  man 
and  consequently  that  there  can  be  according  to 
their  teachings,  nothing  in  man  except  the  body  and 
the  reasoning  soul.  The  slightest  acquaintance  with 
scholastic  philosophy  will  teach  one  that  there  can 
only  be  one  form  in  a  being  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
devotes  a  chapter  to  the  question  (Sum ma  I.,  q.  76, 
a.  4) :  "  Whether  in  man  there  can  be  another  form 


128 

beside  the  reasoning  soul."  He  answers  it  of  course 
in  the  negative,  declaring  it  to  be  impossible,  unless 
we  erroneously  assume  as  the  Platonists  did,  that 
the  soul  merely  moved  the  body. 

Leo  XIII.  adopts  the  same  theory  of  the  all 
powerful  reasoning  soul  in  man,  to  which  the 
will  is  only  the  minister,  in  his  Encyclical  on  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  (above  cited)  and  says  :  "  For  since 
it  is  innate  in  the  nature  of  man  to  follow  reason 
as  his  guide,  if  his  intellect  is  in  anything,  his  will 
yields  thereto."  And  again  in  the  Encyclical  of 
January  10,  1890,  he  says:  "The  mind  is  the  be- 
ginning of  action." 

The  next  point  which  should  be  observed  is  that 
according  to  the  Peripatetic  School  and  the  School- 
men, this  rational  soul  of  man  has  no  innate  ideas, 
but  receives  all  that  it  knows  through  the  senses. 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  accepts  absolutely  the  famous 
saying  of  Aristotle :  "  Nihil  in  intellectu  nisi  in  sen- 
sibus,"  /'.  e.,  "  Nothing  is  in  the  mind  except  through 
the  senses."  Thus  Aquinas  says  in  his  Contra  Gen- 
tiles (Lib.  IV.,  c.  41) :  "  Our  intellect  understands 
nothing  except  through  appearances  "(phantasmata), 
and  again  in  Lib.  I.,  c.  3 :  "  Our  intellect  takes  knowl- 
edge from  sense,"  and  again  in  Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  51, 
a.  i  :  "And  therefore  Aristotle  shows  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  principles  comes  to  us  through  the  senses." 
In  Summa,  I.,  q.  79,  a.  2,  he  says  that  the  intellect 
is  at  first  a  "tabula  rasa." 

As  Harper  says  in  his  Metaphysics  of  the 
School  i  vol.  I.,  p.  450);  "In  the  origin  of  human 
thought,  the  senses  stand  midway  between  the  In- 
tellect and  Being;  so  that  the  saying  is  true  —  There 


1 2Q 

is   nothing  in   the   intellect,  that   has   not  first  passed 
through  the  senses" 

It  is  true  that  Aquinas  also  recognizes  the  exis- 
tence in  man  of  an  "  abstractive  virtue  "  by  which 
the  intellect  can  sequester  the  object  recognized  by 
the  senses  from  the  material  conditions  which  bound 
it  and  consider  it  in  its  "  quiddity  "  ;  but  all  this  has 
nothing  to  do  with  innate  ideas  of  right  or  wrong. 
As  St.  Thomas  briefly  expresses  it :  "  Sensus  est  de 
particular!,  intellectus  de  universali "  (Plassmann's 
First  Volume  of  Philosophy,  p.  334);  see  also  Lib- 
eratore  on  Universals  (translated  by  Bering),  page 
167  and  Soirees  de  Saint  Petersbourg  by  De  Maistre, 
page  140. 

Leo  XIII.  in  his  Encyclical  on  St.  Thomas  em- 
phatically commends  this  theory  in  its  extreme  form, 
saying :  "  As  soon  as  the  Scholastics,  adopting  the 
system  of  the  earlier  Fathers,  found  in  their  studies 
on  anthropology  that  it  is  only  through  the  medium  of 
sensible  things  that  the  human  intelligence  is  led  to  tJie 
knowledge  of  things  without  body  and  matter,  this  at 
once  was  understood  that  nothing  was  more  useful 
to  the  philosopher  than  a  careful  investigation  of 
the  secrets  of  nature."  And  again  he  says  in  his 
Encyclical  on  Church  Unity  (The  Tablet  of  July  4, 
1896) :  "  But  it  is  obvious  that  nothing  can  be  com- 
municated amongst  men  save  by  means  of  external 
things  which  the  senses  can  perceive.  Jesus  Christ 
commanded  His  Apostles  and  their  successors  to 
the  end  of  time  to  teach  and  rule  the  nations.  He 
ordered  the  nations  to  accept  their  teaching  and 
obey  their  authority.  But  this  correlation  of  rights 


130 

and  duties  in  the  Christian  commonwealth  not  only 
could  not  have  been  made  permanent  but  could  not 
even  have  been  initiated  except  through  the  senses, 
which  are  of  all  things  the  messengers  and  inter- 
preters." 

Following  this  principle,  Aristotle  taught  that  man 
can  know  nothing  except  through  that  which  he 
already  knows.  Dr.  Plassmann,  in  the  introductory 
volume  of  his  Philosophy  (p.  256),  as  a  faithful  fol- 
lower of  the  Peripatetic  School,  even  claims  that  all 
the  grand  and  beautiful  thoughts  of  the  heathen  were 
traditions  derived  through  the  Jews  from  Revelation. 

For  a  full  statement  of  all  the  evil  consequences 
of  this  Peripatetic  sensualism,  reference  is  made  to 
Cousin's  Elements  of  Psychology,  especially  pp. 
386-387. 

We  see  therefore  that  there  is  in  Roman  Catholic 
philosophy  no  room  in  man  for  anything  except  body 
and  reason,  and  that  therefore  there  is  in  him  no 
spirit  or  conscience,  distinct  from  reason. 

St.  Thomas  considered  the  question  whether  syn- 
deresis  or  conscience  are  powers  and  answers  in  the 
negative  (Summa  I.,  q.  79,  a.  12  and  a.  13),  declaring 
conscience  to  be  an  act  of  reason  and  of  nothing 
higher  than  reason,  applied  to  moral  questions,  follow- 
ing Aristotle's  Ethics,  Book  VI.,  Chapter  6.  And 
again  in  Summa,  I.,  II.,  q.  19,  a.  5,  he  says:  "  Since 
conscience  is  a  dictate  of  reason,  for  it  is  an  applica- 
tion of  knowledge  to  action,  it  is  the  same  to  ask 
whether  a  will,  opposed  to  a  mistaken  reason  is  evil, 
as  to  ask  whether  an  erring  conscience  is  binding." 
He  is  followed  of  course  in  turn  by  such  writers  of 


the  Stonyhurst  School  as  Father  Rickaby  in  his 
Moral  Philosophy  (pp.  135-137).  The  latter  writes: 
"  What  then  is  conscience  ?  It  is  not  a  faculty,  not 
a  habit ;  it  is  an  act,  it  is  a  practical  judgment  of  the 
understanding.  .  .  .  There  is  a  hot  controversy 
as  to  how  these  primary  moral  judgments  arise  in 
the  mind.  The  coals  of  dispute  are  kindled  by  the 
assumption,  that  these  moral  judgments  must  needs 
have  a  totally  other  origin  and  birth  in  the  mind 
than  speculative  first  principles,  as,  that  the  whole  is 
greater  than  the  part,  that  two  and  two  are  four, 
that  things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  are 
equal  to  one  another.  The  assumption  is  specious 
but  unfounded." 

To  the  same  effect  writes  Father  Maher  in  his 
Psychology  (p.  322) :  "  The  assumption  of  an  addi- 
tional new  faculty  (conscience)  is  gratuitous.  The 
intellect  or  reason  which  perceives  the  self-evident 
necessary  truth  that  '  Equals  added  to  equals  give 
equals,'  is  the  same  power  which  cognizes  the 
validity  of  the  self-evident  axiom  that  '  We  should 
do  as  we  believe  we  ought  to  be  done  by.' ' 

From  this  theory  that  conscience  is  a  sub-depart- 
ment of  reason  arises  the  whole  learning  of  "  prob- 
abilism,"  as  set  out  for  example  in  Gury's  Cases 
of  Conscience,  so  strange  to  one  acquainted  only 
with  the  Christianity  of  the  New  Testament. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  the  Roman  Catholics  are 
necessarily  dichotomists  or  believers  in  the  twofold 
division  of  man's  personality  into  body  and  soul  (or 
intellect)  as  opposed  to  the  school  of  trichotomists 
who  maintain  with  St.  Paul  that  man  has  a  tripartite 


132 

nature,  viz.,  body,  soul  and  spirit,  as  set  forth,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Heard's  Tripartite  Nature  of  Man  (p.  83)  : 
"  To  sum  up  our  remarks,  then,  on  the   contrast 
between  psyche  and  pneuma  in  the  five  passages  of 
New  Testament  (I.  Thes.  v.  23  ;  Heb.,  iv  12;  I.  Cor. 
ii.   ii  ;  James  iii.    15  ;  Jude  19)  which  we  have  con- 
sidered at  length,  we  gather  the  following  distinction 
from  Scripture.     The  psyche  is  the  life  of  man  in  its 
widest  and  most  inclusive  sense,  embracing  not  only 
the  animal,  but  also  the  intellectual  and  moral  facul- 
ties in  so  far  as  their  exercise  has  not  been  depraved 
by  the  fall.     In  this  sense  Aristotle's  generalization 
of  the  psyche  is  not  wide  of  the  Scriptural  meaning. 
The  soul,  he  says,  is  that  by  which  we  live,  feel,  or 
perceive,  will,  move  and  understand.     .     .     .     Were 
man    made   up   of    body   and  soul    only,   then   the 
psychology   of   Scripture  would    be  identical  with 
that  of  Aristotle  and  a  controversy  of  long  standing 
might  be  set  at  rest  at  once  and  forever.     But  it  is 
exactly  where   Aristotle  leaves  off   that    Scripture 
begins  to  treat  of  human  nature^  and  tells  us  of  a 
faculty — let  us  call  it  God-consciousness — which  is 
dead  or  dormant  in  a  great  degree  since  the  fall,  and 
which  it  is  the  work  and  office  of  the  Holy  Ghost  first 
to  quicken  and  then  to  direct,  sanctify,  and  govern. 
This   faculty  to  which  Scripture  gives  the  name  of 
Ruach  or  Pneuma,  is  altogether  ignored  by  Aristotle, 
and  confounded  by  Plato  with  the  intellectual  Nous. 
.     .     .     He   (Aristotle)  was   profoundly  and  we  be- 
lieve sincerely  unconscious  of  the  divine  faculty  in 
man,  for  the  reason  given  by  the  apostle  that  the 
psychical  man  perceives  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit 


133 

of  God.  He  knew  not  of  the  Spirit's  work,  because 
he  was  '  dead,'  as  all  men  by  nature  are  to  divine 
things." 

Among  the  early  Christian  Fathers  Justin  Martyr, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Gregory  Nyssen  and  Basil 
maintained  the  threefold  nature  of  man,  /.  e.  body, 
soul  and  spirit.  Thus  Irenasus  says  in  his  Fifth 
Book  against  Heresies,  chap,  six :  "  For  that  flesh 
which  has  been  molded  is  not  a  perfect  man  in 
itself,  but  the  body  of  a  man ;  neither  is  the  soul 
itstlf,  considered  a  part  by  itself,  the  man,  but 
it  is  the  soul  of  a  man  and  part  of  a  man.  Neither 
is  the  spirit  a  man,  for  it  is  called  the  spirit 
and  not  a  man  ;  but  the  commingling  and  union 
of  all  these  constitutes  the  perfect  man.  And 
for  this  cause  does  the  Apostle,  explaining  himself, 
make  it  clear  that  the  saved  man  is  a  complete  man 
as  well  as  a  spiritual ;  saying  thus  in  the  first  Epistle 
of  Thessalonians,  '  Now  the  God  of  peace  sanctify 
you  perfect ;  and  may  your  spirit,  soul  and  body  be 
preserved  whole  without  complaint  to  the  coming  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.'  " 

Tatian,  in  his  Address  to  the  Greeks,  Chap.  XII, 
(A.  D.  1 10-172)  declares  "  We  recognize  two  varieties 
of  spirit  one  of  which  is  called  the  soul  ('/'fjv)  but 
the  other  is  greater  than  the  soul,  an  image  and  like- 
ness of  God.'5 

Among  modern  writers  the  matter  is  succinctly 
stated  in  Blunt's  Theological  Dictionary  : 

"  But  the  '  soul '  of  St.Paul's  system  is  not  the  mere 
animal  principle  of  Aristotle's  system.  It  is,  rather, 
an  union  of  the  vovS  and  the  tyvxri,  of  the  reasoning 


134 

faculty  and  the  animating  life ;  the  itvsvua  being  a 
divine  principle  belonging  to  a  new  creation  of  su- 
pernatural being,  which  sprung  from  the  incarnation 
of  Diety  (Mediation)  and  was  the  gift  bestowed  in 
the  new  birth  of  human  nature  (Spirit).  This  trichot- 
omy is  the  only  psychological  system  which  is  rec- 
oncilable with  the  general  statements  of  holy  Scrip- 
ture respecting  the  soul." 

The  practical  difference  which  results  from  the 
adoption  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  theories  is 
immense.  According  to  the  latter,  the  ^Christian 
needs  no  written  code,  "  long  as  the  moral  law." 
Love  is  the  moral  law  to  guide  him  in  every  circum- 
stance of  life.  Christ's  promise  that  the  Comforter 
would  come  after  His  departure  is  held  good  for  all 
time.  If  men  will  but  follow  Christ's  precepts  and 
thus  avail  themselves  of  the  means  of  grace  which 
He  provides,  "  The  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  and  Giver 
of  Life  "  will  still  speak  directly  to  men's  individual 
consciences,  obliterating  selfishness,  the  root  of  all 
evil,  and  substituting  self  sacrifice,  love  of  God  and 
the  brethren;  how  much  higher  this  is  than  knowledge 
as  knowledge  is  above  sensual  pleasures,  is  beauti- 
fully set  out  in  the  closing  chapters  of  "  God  in  His 
World."  This  was  the  Spirit  which  animated  the 
Christians  of  the  days  described  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  Epistles  and  the  Ante-Nicene  Fathers, 
entering  into  man's  spirit  and  making  it  cry  "  Abba, 
Father,"  as  described  so  fully  in  the  eighth  chapter  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  endowing  all  men  with 
an  identical  spirit  of  right  and  wrong,  more  or  less 
developed,  as  they  avail  themselves  of  the  means  of 
grace,  prescribed  by  Christ  himself. 


135 

According  to  the  former  theory,  as  there  was 
nothing  in  man  except  body  and  intellect,  there  was 
no  conscience,  no  almost  superhuman  faculty,  to 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  could  speak.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  promised  only 
to  the  Apostles  and  to  the  successors  of  one  of  them 
as  bishops  of  Rome,  to  whom  was  thus  committed 
the  "  magisterium  "  or  power  to  guide  the  intellects 
of  all  people,  as  claimed  in  the  Encyclical  on  Chris- 
tian Unity. 

The  evidence  for  the  first  part  of  this  proposition 
is  found  in  the  words  of  our  Lord  as  addressed  to 
his  Apostles,  before  His  crucifixion,  in  which  He 
promised  to  them  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  evidence  in  favor  of  the  second  part  of  the  prop- 
osition is  found  in  the  logical  argument  that  God 
must  have  intended  unity  in  the  Church  as  a  perfect 
society  in  order  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  faith, 
and  that  such  unity  is  impossible  without  an  abso- 
lute, infallible  head.  As  Leo  XIII.  says  in  the  En- 
cyclical last  above  cited  :  "  Indeed,  no  true  and  per- 
fect society  can  be  conceived  which  is  not  governed 
by  some  supreme  authority.  Christ,  therefore,  must 
have  given  to  His  Church  a  supreme  authority  to 
which  all  Christians  must  render  obedience.  For 
this  reason,  as  the  unity  of  the  faith  is  of  necessity 
required  for  the  unity  of  the  Church,  unity  of  gov- 
ernment is  necessary,  jure  divino.  But  since  He 
willed  that  His  Kingdom  should  be  visible,  He  was 
obliged,  when  He  ascended  into  Heaven,  to  desig- 
nate a  Vice-Regent  on  earth." 

This  argument  is  almost  a  literal  translation  of  the 


'36 

following  passage  from  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  his 
Contra  Gentiles  (Lib.  IV.,  c.  76),  which  chapter  Leo 
XIII.  also  cites  immediately  afterwards  : 

"  To  the  unity  of  the  Church  it  is  requisite  that  all 
the  faithful  should  agree  as  to  the  faith.  But  con- 
cerning those  things  which  are  of  faith,  it  will  hap- 
pen that  questions  will  be  raised  ;  but  by  differences 
of  opinion  the  Church  is  divided,  unless  it  is  pre- 
served in  unity  by  the  opinion  of  one.  Therefore  it 
is  necessary  for  preserving  the  unity  of  the  Church 
that  there  should  be  one  to  preside  over  the  Church. 
But  it  is  manifest  that  Christ  does  not  fail  to  provide 
necessaries  for  his  Church.  ...  It  is,  therefore, 
not  to  be  doubted  that  one  presides  over  the  whole 
Church  by  the  ordination  of  Christ." 

It  is  submitted  that  a  study  of  the  Summa  shows 
that  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  believed  the  philosophical 
system  of  Aristotle  to  be  correct,  that  men  consisted 
only  of  body  and  the  intellectual  soul,  and  adapted 
the  teachings  of  Christianity  to  it,  merely  substitut- 
ing for  public  opinion,  or  for  the  opinion  of  the  most 
eminent  men,  which  was  Aristotle's  arbiter  of  right 
and  wrong,  the  opinion  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
Apostles,  St.  Peter,  and  his  successors  in  office, 
which  was  to  enlighten  and  guide  all  intellects. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  writings  of  St.  Thomas  are 
to  be  found  passages  which  refer  to  the  action  of 
angels  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  the  minds  of  men ; 
but  these  remnants  of  the  older  and  purer  theology 
are  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  Aristotelian 
theory  of  body  and  soul.  This  appeared  in  the  con- 
test which  occurred  within  the  Roman  Catholic 


137 

Church  in  the  last  century  over  Jansenism,  and 
which  is  so  eloquently  described  in  the  Provincial 
Letters  of  Pascal.  The  contest  ended  in  the  utter 
discomfiture  of  the  Anti-aristotelians,  and  the  accept- 
ance of  the  Jesuit  theory  that  all  men  are  born  with 
sufficient  grace,  and  hence  logically  need  no  help 
from  the  Holy  Ghost. 

By  the  declaration  of  the  papal  infallibility  in  all 
questions  of  morals,  this  system  has  been  completed  ; 
for,  as  shown  above  in  the  first  chapter,  the  word 
"  morals  "  includes  all  human  intentional  acts.  As 
St.  Thomas  says  in  Summa,  L,  II.,  q.  i,  a.  3  :  "  Moral 
acts  and  human  acts  are  the  same."  What  human 
acts  of  the  slightest  importance  can  there  be  for 
which  an  infallible  rule  cannot  be  obtained  from 
Rome  ?  What  need  is  there,  then,  of  a  Holy  Ghost  ? 

In  the  Encyclical  concerning  the  principal  duties 
of  Christian  citizens,  dated  January  10,  1890  (Leonis 
Papae  XIII.  Allocutiones,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  15),  His  Holi- 
ness demands  "  wills  perfectly  subject  and  obedient 
.  .  .  to  the  Roman  Pontiff  as  to  God." 

In  a  letter  to  Cardinal  Nina,  Pontifical  Secretary 
of  State,  dated  August  27,  1878  (Leonis  Papae  Allo- 
cutiones, Vol.  I.,  p.  39),  he  claims  to  be  "the  Master 
of  the  faith  and  the  Ruler  of  the  consciences  "  of  all 
Catholics.  Justin  McCarthy  in  his  Leo  XIII.  (p.  89) 
calls  him  "  the  ruler  over  consciences." 

The  logical  consequence  of  this  Romaa  Catholic 
teaching  is  the  rule  of  the  Jesuits,  in  their  Constitu- 
tions (VI.,  i) :  "  Let  every  one  believe  firmly  that 
those  who  live  under  obedience  should  let  them- 
selves be  guided  and  governed  by  their  superiors 


138 

exactly  as  though  they  were  corpses  which  let  them- 
selves be  turned  in  every  direction  and  treated  in 
any  manner  ;  or  like  the  staff  in  the  hands  of  an  aged 
man,  which  serves  him  who  holds  it  in  his  hand  for 
all  purposes  and  in  all  purposes." 

Among  the  general  public  this  doctrine  has  been 
inculcated  under  the  guise  of  "  probabalism  "  which 
allows  a  man  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  sayings 
or  writings  of  some  one  in  authority,  disregarding 
the  promptings  of  his  conscience ;  for  the  general 
public,  one  author  of  "  exceptional  authority  "  will 
do — even  if  the  act  be  with  fear  of  one's  conscience 
that  the  opposite  course  is  correct ;  see  Gury's 
Compendium  of  Moral  Theology,  I.,  p.  36,  cap.  4  De 
Consc.  Prob. 

The  practical  elimination  of  the  Third  Person  of 
the  Blessed  Trinity  from  popular  modern  Roman 
Catholic  Theology,  which  necessarily  follows  this 
denial  of  conscience,  is  therefore  not  to  be  wondered 
at.  In  the  City  of  Rome,  with  its  hundreds  of 
Churches,  not  one  is  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Ghost. 

As  Mgr.  Talbot,  private  chamberlain  of  Pius  IX., 
writes  to  Cardinal  Manning  in  "  Life  of  Cardinal 
Manning  "  (Vol.  II.,  p.  155,  note) : 

"  What  a  beautiful  sermon  Father  Faber  preached 
on  the  Feast  of  Pentecost  !  1  read  it  with  great  inter- 
est, and  I  have  had  it  translated  into  Italian,  as  I  think 
it  quite  as  applicable  to  the  Romans  and  Italians 
as  it  is  to  the  English.  Really,  one  of  the  great 
characteristics  of  the  age  is  to  ignore  the  existence 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Church." 

To    one    acquainted     with    Cardinal     Manning's 


139 

strong  devotion  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  his  constant 
contest  with  the  Jesuit  faction  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  so  often  mentioned  in  his  "  Life,3'  was  a 
foregone  conclusion.  In  all  the  voluminous  writings 
of  Leo  XIII.,  the  author  does  not  recollect  seeing 
more  than  one  or  two  references  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
except  in  formal  invocations  of  the  Blessed  Trinity, 
or  where  he  is  shown  as  speaking  to  the  Apostles  or 
their  successors  ;  certainly  there  is  no  recognition  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  teacher  of  all  Christians,  speak- 
ing directly  to  the  souls  of  men. 

In  the  Encyclical  De  vita  sancta  instituenda 
(Leonis  Papse  XIII.  Allocutiones,  Vol.  III.,  p.  190), 
there  is  no  mention  of  the  Third  Person  of  the 
Blessed  Trinity  as  influencing  man's  spirit. 

The  burning  question  during  the  early  Reformation 
was  whether  laymen  should  be  allowed  to  sit  in  the 
Council,  which  all  agreed  should  be  called,  for  the 
reformation  of  morals ;  Pope  Paul  IV.,  in  his  com- 
munication to  Charles  V.,  asserted  that  the  guidance 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  had  been  promised  only  to  the 
clergy  (Froude's  Council  of  Trent,  p.  125). 

Does  this  Roman  Catholic  condition  not  suggest 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  men  at  Ephesus,  referred  to 
by  St.  Paul  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  Acts,  who 
said :  "  We  have  not  so  much  as  heard  whether 
there  be  any  Holy  Ghost."  Might  it  not  even  be 
that  this  is  the  "  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  "? 

This  is  still  the  real  battleground  between  Protest- 
ants and  Roman  Catholics. 

The  answer  to  this  Roman  Catholic  th^ry 
is  of  course  that  according  to  the  New  Testa- 


140 

ment,  ^especially  the  Acts  and  Epistles,  there  is  over- 
whelming evidence  of  the  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  the  individual  consciences  of  all  Christians,  with 
ample  power  to  guide  them  to  all  truth,  so  far  as 
they  avail  themselves  of  the  means  of  grace. 

This  theory  disregards  utterly  such  texts  as  the 
two  following  :  i  Cor.,  6,  19.  "  What  ?  know  ye  not 
that  your  body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
which  is  in  you,  which  ye  have  of  God  and  ye  are 
not  your  own?  " 

i  Cor.,  3,  16. 

"  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you  ?  " 

It  substitutes  for  the  divine  guidance  of  the  Spirit, 
a  blind  obedience  to  others  and  an  utter  failure  to 
develop  our  inborn  tendencies  to  act  honestly, 
benevolently,  etc.,  of  our  own  accord,  even  in  cases 
where  no  rule  has  been  laid  down  for  us  by 
authority ;  it  teaches  us  that  such  a  development 
is  impossible,  because  there  is  no  such  thing  in  us 
as  a  spirit  or  conscience,  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  to  develop. 

It  is  submitted  moreover  that  this  system  of 
dichotomy  crushes  the  most  important  part  of  a 
man's  personality,  that  it  dries  up  and  destroys 
that  very  part  of  his  nature  to  develop  which 
Christ  came  to  earth,  that  it  strikes  at  the  very  root 
of  all  independent  healthy  development  of  character. 

As  Fairbairn  says  in  his  "  Morality  "  : 

"  Religious  education  must  educe  and  bring  into 
conscious  operation  the  perception  of  truth  and  the 
practice  of  truth.  The  soul  must  know  the  truth  by 
its  own  operations  and  it  must  learn  to  abhor  false- 


hood  and  hypocrisy.  It  does  not  educe  and  bring 
into  operation  the  moral  powers  by  merely  putting 
into  the  mind  a  knowledge  of  what  truth  is.  Chris- 
tian education  brings  into  operation  the  conscience. 
.  .  .  .  This  is  where  Christian  education  may 
exercise  its  functions  in  bringing  into  operation  the 
higher  parts  of  our  nature,  and  in  making  them  the 
rulers  and  guides  of  human  action.  It  is  thus  that 
benevolence,  justice,  truth,  purity  and  order  become 
the  characteristic  virtues  of  life."  See  also  "  Lux 
Mundi "  (page  396)  and  Richmond's  "  Christian 
Economics  "  (page  7). 

Nor  does  this  destruction  of  conscience  as  an  inde, 
pendent  power  within  us  affect  only  our  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong ;  it  tears  up  the  roots  from  which  spring 
all  our  most  beautiful  ideals  which  we  long  to  express 
in  art ;  it  deprives  us  of  that  discontent  and  enter- 
prise, the  mother  of  invention,  which  is  ever  driv- 
ing the  individual  to  improve  his  condition,  to  do  his 
duty  in  that  state  of  life  in  which  it  has  pleased  God 
to  call  him,  better  and  more  expeditiously,  and  thus 
creates  one  main  difference  between  progressive  na- 
tions and  those  which  remain  waiting  patiently  until 
some  one  from  above  shall  teach  them  what  to  do. 

The  importance  of  the  cultivation  of  this  spiritual 
faculty,  even  from  a  mere  worldly  point  of  view, 
is  well  shown  in  Hudson's  "  Laws  of  Psychic 
Phenomena,'5  where  the  power  of  this  part  of  man 
over  the  physical  world  is  fully  described. 

The  neighboring  races  of  French  Canadians  and 
New  England  Protestants  are  good  examples  of  the 
practical  effects  of  these  doctrines;  committees  of 


142 

priests  have  recently  been  appointed  to  teach  the 
"  Habitans  "  of  Canada  some  of  the  modern  improve- 
ments in  agriculture. 

A  characteristic  story  was  related  by  the  author's 
father,  who  was  educated  at  the  Jesuit  College  in 
Montreal :  one  day  in  replying-  to  a  question  put  by 
the  priest,  he  gave  the  answer  as  it  appeared  in 
the  book,  and  then  continued,  "  therefore  so-and-so 
is  so-and-so  "  ;  the  priest  immediately  interrupted 
him  with  the  words :  "  See  that  boy  who  says 
'  therefore ' !  What  has  he  to  do  with  '  therefore  '  ? 
Let  him  answer  the  question  as  it  stands  in  the  book 
and  nothing  more ! " 

May  not  a  Roman  Catholic  country  be  called  a 
land  where  there  is  for  laymen  no  "  therefore  "  ? 

As  William  Arthur  says  in  his  "  Popes,  Kings 
and  People  "  (p.  458) : 

"  But  when  men  have  once  really  believed  in  a  God 
who  leaves  the  rule  over  His  redeemed  offspring  to 
a  vicar,  and  have  believed  in  man  as  a  creature 
whose  conscience  another  man  is  to  keep,  it  is  hard 
to  find  in  them  foothold  for  Christian  convictions. 
They  are  kneaded  to  the  hand  of  the  priest." 

How  subservient  to  papal  authority  individuals 
become  even  in  the  United  States,  and  even  among  a 
class  generally  so  independent  as  newspaper  editors, 
may  be  shown  by  the  following  extract  which 
appeared  in  the  daily  press,  from  an  address  to  the 
Pope  recently  forwarded  through  Cardinal  Satolli  : 
"To  His  Holiness  Pope  Leo  XIII.  : 

Most  Holy  Father — Prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Your 
Holiness  we,  the  editors  of  the  Catholic  Press  of  the 


H3 

United  States  of  America,  taking  the  occasion  of  the 
presence  of  your  Apostolic  Delegate  whose  resi- 
dence we  regard  as  a  special  mark  of  your  favor,  beg 
to  present  through  him,  the  expression  of  our  filial 
devotion  and  steadfast  loyalty  to  the  person  and  pol- 
icy of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  the  Vicar  of  Christ 
upon  earth,  and  at  the  same  time  profess  ourselves 
filled  with  a  determination,  not  only  to  vindicate  the 
inalienable  rights  of  the  See  of  Peter,  but  to  advance, 
as  far  as  in  us  lies,  the  welfare  ot  the  Holy  Church 
in  the  United  States." 

But  even  these  editors  "  prostrate  at  the  feet  of 
Your  Holiness "  are  apparently  not  subservient 
enough  to  suit  the  Hierarchy  of  this  country,  for 
two  days  after  the  editors  had  determined  on  this 
address,  the  Archbishops  published  the  following 
proclamation :  "  And  lest  the  present  evil,  a  daily 
growing  source  of  scandal  to  Catholics  and  others, 
should  continue  to  flourish,  we  judge  well  to  meet 
it,  not  by  cautions  and  advices  merely,  but  also  by 
ecclesiastical  penalties.  Wherefore,  for  the  future, 
laymen  or  clerics  who  through  themselves  or 
through  others,  associated  or  encouraged  by  them, 
in  public  print  assail  by  wanton  words,  ill-natured 
utterance,  railleries,  those  in  authority,  much  more  if 
they  presume  to  carp  at  or  condemn  a  bishop's 
method  of  administration,  all  those,  principals,  part- 
ners, and  abettors,  disturbers,  contemners,  and  ene- 
mies of  the  ecclesiastical  discipline,  as  they  are,  we 
declare  guilty  of  gravest  scandal,  and  thereby,  their 
fault  being  proved,  deserving  of  censure." 

For  practical  effect  in  charitable  work   compare 


144 

the  Teachings  on  the  Mount  or  the  spirit  which 
breathes  in  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  or  in 
the  Ante-Nicene  Fathers  with  the  cold  and  elaborate 
dissertations  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  on  Morality, 
balancing  one  excess  against  the  other,  in  very  much 
the  same  language  which  Aristotle  had  used  three 
hundred  years  before  Christ's  coming ! 

The  Ethics  as  the  work  of  the  heathen  Aristotle  is 
doubtless  much  to  be  admired ;  he  knew  of  no  con- 
science, speaking  with  authority  from  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  the  best  ethical  rule  he  could  imagine  (Book 
II.,  Chapter  9)  was  the  opinion  of  those  among  man- 
kind who  are  most  honored  by  their  fellows ;  his 
highest  ideal  (Book  X.,  Chapter  8)  was  a  selfish- 
ness consisting  in  the  gratification  not  of  the  senses, 
but  of  the  intellect,  attainable  by  a  few  at  the  expense 
of  the  toil  and  degradation  of  the  many.  His 
exaltation  of  the  contemplative  life,  undisturbed 
by  emotions  whether  right  or  wrong,  above  the  life 
of  action  as  being  more  continuous,  more  inde- 
pendent, more  reposeful,  more  final,  is  evidently  an 
echo  of  the  Nirvana  doctrine  of  the  Buddhists  of 
India,  brought  back  by  the  army  of  Alexander.  St. 
Thomas  says  in  Summa,  I.,  II.,  q.  3,  a.  5  :  "  Happi- 
ness consists  more  in  the  work  of  the  speculative 
than  of  the  practical  intellect "  ;  and  again  he  says 
in  Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  3,  a.  8  :  "  The  last  and  perfect 
happiness  cannot  be,  except  in  the  contemplation  of 
the  divine  essence." 

In  comparing  the  active  and  contemplative  life, 
the  difference  is  stated  in  question  three,  article  five 
(above  cited),  as  follows  :  "  In  contemplative  life,  man 


H5 
% 

communicates  with  his  superiors,  that  is  with  God 
and  the  angels,  with  whom  by  happiness  he  is 
assimilated ;  but  in  those  things  which  pertain  to 
active  life,  even  other  animals  have  something  in 
common  with  man,  although  imperfectly." 

This  conclusion,  which  is  reached  only  after  an 
elaborate  consideration  of  all  the  various  human 
capacities,  is  the  same  as  that  of  Aristotle  who,  in 
his  Ethics  (Book  X.,  Chapter  8)  says  :  "  It  follows 
that  the  activity  of  God  being  preeminently  blissful 
will  be  speculative,  and  if  so  then  the  human  activity 
which  is  most  nearly  related  to  it,  will  be  most  cap- 
able of  happiness.  We  conclude  then  that  happiness 
is  co-extensive  with  speculation." 

The  teaching  of  Aristotle  and  St.  Thomas,  by 
which  the  life  of  contemplation  is  exalted  above 
the  life  of  action,  is  certainly  largely  responsible  for 
the  state  of  facts  which  Cardinal  Manning  laments 
in  his  "  Life  "  (Vol.  II.,  p.  781) :  "  And  further  all  the 
great  works  of  charity  in  England  have  had  their 
beginning  out  of  the  (Roman  Catholic)  Church — for 
instance,  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  and  slavery  ; 
and  the  persevering  protest  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Society.  Not  a  Catholic  name,  so  far  as  I  know, 
shared  in  this.  France,  Portugal  and  Brazil  have 
been  secretly,  or  openly,  slave  trading,  or,  till  now, 
even,  slave-holding.  The  whole  temperance  move- 
ment— it  was  a  Quaker  that  made  F.  Mathew  a 
total  abstainer.  Catholic  Ireland  and  the  Catholics 
of  England,  until  now,  have  done  little  for  temper, 
ance.  The  Anglican  and  dissenting  ministers  are  far 
more  numerously  total  abstainers  than  our  priests. 


The  Act  of  Parliament  to  protect  animals  from 
cruelty  was  carried  by  a  non-Catholic  Irishman  ;  the 
Anti-Vivisection  Act  also.  Both  are  derided,  to  my 
knowledge,  among  Catholics.  The  acts  to  protect 
children  from  cruelty  were  the  work  of  Dissenters. 
On  these  three  societies  there  is  hardly  a  Catholic 
name ;  on  the  last,  mine  was  for  long  the  only  one. 
So  again  in  the  uprising  against  the  horrible  de- 
pravity which  destroys  young  girls — multitudes  of 
ours — I  was  literally  denounced  by  Catholics ;  not 
one  came  forward.  If  it  was  ill  done,  why  did  no- 
body try  to  mend  it?  I  might  go  on.  There  are 
endless  works  for  the  protection  of  shop  assistants, 
overworked  railway  and  train  men,  women  and 
children  ground  down  by  sweaters,  and  driven  by 
starvation  wages  upon  the  streets.  Not  one  of  the 
works  in  their  behalf  was  started  by  us,  hardly  a 
Catholic  name  is  to  be  found  on  their  reports.  Surely 
we  are  in  the  Sacristy.  It  is  not  that  our  Catholics 
deliberately  refuse,  but  partly  they  do  not  take  the 
pains  to  know,  partly  they  are  prejudiced.  'Can 
any  good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth  ?  '  Partly  they 
are  suspicious  ;  '  who  knows  it  is  not  a  proselytising 
affair  ?  '  And  finally  they  live  on  easily,  unconscious 
that  Lazarus  lies  at  their  gate  full  of  sores."  The 
predecessor  of  Cardinal  Manning,  Cardinal  Wise- 
man, had  made  a  complaint  in  the  same  spirit  against 
the  Monastic  Orders  for  their  lack  of  participation 
in  strictly  spiritual  work  among  the  poor  (Life  of 
Cardinal  Manning,  Vol.  II.,  p.  4) :  "  Now  look  at 
the  position  in  which  I  am.  Having  believed,  having 
preached,  having  assured  bishops  and  clergy,  that 


147 

in  no  great  city  could  the  salvation  of  multitudes  be 
carried  out  by  the  limited  parochial  clergy,  but  that 
religious  communities  alone  can  and  will  undertake 
the  huge  work   of  converting  and   preserving   the 
corrupted  masses.      I  have  acted  on  this  conviction. 
I  have  introduced,  or  greatly  encouraged,  the  estab- 
lishment of  five  religious  congregations  in  my  diocese ; 
and  I  am  just  (for  the  great   work)  where    I   first 
began  !     Not  one  of  them  can  (for  it  cannot  be  want 
of  will)  undertake  it.     It  comes  within  the  purpose 
of  none  of  them  to  try.      Souls  are  perishing  around 
them,  but  they  are  prevented  by  their  Rules,  given 
by  Saints,  from  helping  to  save  them,  at  least  in  any 
but  a  particular  and  definite  way.  .  .  .     Almost  every 
religious  community  has  no  end  of  dispensations, 
some  from  fasting  and  abstinence,  some  from  choir, 
all  from  the  habit,  some  have  female  servants,  etc , 
etc.     If  you  ask  them  why  all  these  exceptions,  you 
are  told  the   circumstances  of  the  country  require 
them.     But   who  thinks  of  recurring  to  the  same 
dispensing  power  of  the  Holy   See  for  exemption 
and  liberation  from  provisions  as  much  intended  for 
different  countries  as  these,  from  restrictions  on  the 
power  of  doing  good  in  the  way  that  the  country 
requires  it  ?  " 

The  ethics  of  the  Jesuits,  so  severely  criticised,  for 
example  in  Pascal's  "  Provincial  Letters,"  or  Bun- 
sen's  "  Zeichen  der  Zeit,"  find  ample  authority  in 
Aristotle,  if  not  in  the  New  Testament.  Cardinal 
Gibbons  in  a  public  letter,  containing  a  threat  that 
Roman  Catholics  would  leave  one  political  party 
(published  in  the  Catholic  Review  of  May  23,  1896), 


148 

declares :  "  Patience  is  a  virtue,  but  it  is  not  the 
only  virtue  ;  when  pushed  too  far  it  may  degenerate 
into  pusilanimity."  It  is  submitted  that  His  Emi- 
nence would  find  difficulty  in  citing  a  text  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  in  support  of  this  principle, 
that  patience  has  its  limits — but  he  would  find 
numerous  authorities  to  that  effect  in  the  writings 
of  the  Prince  of  Philosophers ;  as  for  example  in  his 
"  Ethics,"  Book  IV.,  Chapter  5  :  "It  is  like  a  slave  to 
endure  insults  offered  to  one's  self."  As  Father 
Harper  declares  in  his  Metaphysics  of  the  School 
(Introduction,  p.  LXXIL):  "His  (St.  Thomas 
Aquinas')  moral  Theology — to  repeat  what  I  have 
said  before — is  built  upon  the  Ethics  of  the  great 
Stagy  rite." 

Is  it  then  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Jesuits,  be- 
lieving that  there  is  in  man  no  divine  spiritual  part 
which,  at  the  touch  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  ready  to 
flame  heavenward,  should  build  all  their  churches, 
not  in  Gothic  architecture  in  which  the  spirit  is  ever 
striving  upward  to  throw  off  the  weight  of  inert 
matter,  but  in  the  Grecian  style,  expressive  of  pagan 
contentment  with  the  earthly,  sensual  beauty  of  this 
world,  and  that,  in  accordance  with  the  same  taste, 
every  piece  of  Christian  Gothic  architecture  has  been 
eliminated  from  modern  Rome  ? 

The  answer  of  Christianity  to  Aristotelianism  is 
therefore  also  its  answer  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
Scholasticism. 

To  any  one  familiar  with  the  writings  of  the 
Aquinate  the  following  extract  from  "  Aristote- 
lianism," by  Rev.  I.  Gregory  Smith  might  be  sup- 
posed to  be  written  with  reference  to  St.  Thomas ; 


149 

(P.  28).  "  There  is  not  indeed  the  unhesitating  and 
unequivocal  enunciation  of  self-knowledge,  self- 
acquittal,  self-condemnation,  which  is  the  inheritance 
of  Christian  ethics. 

"  The  word  (conscience),  which  the  New  Testament 
has  made  familiar  for  this  moral  introspection,  is  not 
in  Aristotle.  As  v/e  have  seen,  he  makes  the  reason 
the  judge,  presiding  over  this  court  ever  in  session 
within  the  man,  rather  than  the  advocate  laying  his 
case  before  the  will,  whose  verdict  is  final.  Above 
all,  apart  from  any  deficiencies  in  the  character  of 
the  morality,  which  it  inculcates,  the  great  defect  in 
the  Aristotelian  conception  of  conscience  is  the  want 
of  authority.  Conscience  with  Aristotle  is  not  the 
voice  of  God.  So  long  as  conscience  is  supported 
by  no  sanction  higher  than  man  himself  can  give,  so 
long  as  conscience  can  appeal  only  to  the  general 
consent  of  mankind,  to  the  intelligent  approval  of 
those  who  are  esteemed  above  their  fellows,  to  the 
legislative  enactments  of  the  State,  to  considerations, 
however  obvious  of  expediency,  conscience  cannot 
dictate,  can  only  expostulate  and  remonstrate,  often 
like  Cassandra,  in  vain.  Without  a  sanction  more 
permanent,  more  comprehensive,  more  unquestion- 
ably obligatory  than  human  enforcements,  singly  or 
collectively,  can  supply,  conscience  cannot  claim 
obedience  as  a  due,  which  must  be  rendered,  come 
what  may." 

(P.  46).  "  Virtue  is  instrumental  in  regulating  the 
passions,  which  would  otherwise  frustrate  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  by  their  infatuation.  Be  good  that  ye 
may  be  happy  is  the  key-note  of  his  philosophy. 


Self  is  the  center  of  his  system  ;  regard  for  self  shapes 
and  colors  it  from  first  to  last.  The  '  Ethics '  are 
Aristotle's  answer  to  the  question,  '  How  is  man  to  be 
happy  ? ' 

"  It  is  a  lofty  selfishness.  There  is  nothing  sordid, 
nothing  gross  about  it.  It  marks,  as  by  a  highwater 
line,  how  high  ideal  selfishness  can  be  raised.  But  it 
is  genuine  unalloyed  selfishness,  and  this  lies  at  the 
very  core  of  the  philosophy.  .  .  .  It  is,  in  a  word, 
the  unruffled  serenity,  -inseparable  from  virtue. 
Where  could  there  be  a  more  beautiful  ideal  of  life, 
if  the  culture  of  self,  the  beautification  of  self,  were 
all  in  all  ?  Even  when,  leaving  sublunary  things, 
Aristotle  soars  upwards  into  the  life  contemplative, 
self  clings  to  him.  He  places  contemplation  above 
action  as  more  continuous,  more  independent,  more 
reposeful,  more  final.  .  .  .  Emotion  disturbs  it. 
Therefore  emotions  rightly  directed  or  not,  must  be 
hushed  into  absolute  stillness.  This  is  a  glorious 
ideal,  so  far  as  it  represents  the  supremacy  of  reason 
over  passion.  But  it  is  a  selfish  glory  after  all ;  even 
as  the  devout  raptures  of  the  monk  in  his  cell  are 
selfish,  so  far  as  they  are  purchased  by  the  soldier's 
abandonment  of  his  post  in  the  turmoil  and  peril  ot 
life.  The  contemplative  life  is  a  refined  selfishness, 
the  selfish  enjoyment  of  a  transcendental  bliss  incom- 
municable to  mankind  generally.  The  happiness 
which  Aristotle  proposes  as  the  end  of  being  is  not 
something  which  all  have  a  title  to  share  in ;  it  is  the 
privilege  of  a  few.  He  rejects  the  hedonism  or  utili- 
tarianism of  the  vulgar,  only  to  substitute  the  same 
thing  in  disguise." 


Another  doctrine  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  derived 
as  usual  from  Aristotle,  which  has  helped  greatly 
to  destroy  individual  initiative  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries  is  that  all  movement  comes  from  above, 
and,  therefore,  above  everything  moved  must  stand 
one  who  moves  it,  God  alone  is  not  moved  by  any 
one.  (De  Regimine  Principum,  Lib.  III.,  cap.  i  to 
3,  and  Contra  Gentiles,  Lib.  I.,  cap.  13). 

The  connection  of  this  doctrine  with  astrology 
will  be  shown  in  the  last  chapter. 

A  further  Aristotelian  teaching  which  St.  Thomas 
adopted  and  which  has  had  a  most  far-reaching  con- 
sequence is  that  of  the  "  Final  Cause,"  from  which 
every  action  must  be  judged.  Thus  he  says  in 
Summa  I.,  II.,  q.  i,  a.  3 :  "  According  as  the  end  is 
praiseworthy  or  to  be  blamed,  our  works  should  be 
praised  or  blamed,"  and  id.  q.  18,  a.  4  :  "  Human  ac- 
tions depend  from  their  ends  .  .  .  from  their  ends 
they  take  the  quality  of  good  or  evil  .  .  .  whose 
end  is  good,  he  is  good,  and  whose  end  is  bad,  he  is 
bad."  The  notorious  use  which  the  Jesuits  have 
made  of  this  principle  by  claiming  that  their  organi- 
zation had  the  very  highest  end  and  justified  any 
action,  need  not  here  be  commented  on.  To  quote 
again  Mgr.  Talbot  (Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,  II.,  p. 
388) :  "  The  motto  of  the  Jesuits  ought  to  be  changed 
from  ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam  to  ad  majorem  Socie- 
tatis  gloriam." 

This  doctrine,  that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  for 
which  the  Jesuits  have  been  most  strongly  blamed 
and  which  even  they  have  feared  to  defend,  is  one 
of  the  foundation  stones  of  the  philosophy  of  him 


152 

who,  by  the  Paladin  of  the  Jesuits,  has  been  declared 
the  Patron  of  all  Roman  Catholic  schools  and  col- 
leges. 

Moreover,  this  theory  of  dichotomy  strikes  at  the 
root  of  the  importance  of  the  Lord's  Supper;  if  we 
adopt  the  theory  of  transubstantiation,  we  must  first 
believe  that  our  Lord,  in  common  with  all  men, 
possessed  a  substantial  form  which  takes  the  place 
of  the  substantial  form  of  the  bread  in  the  Blessed 
Sacrament ;  but  if  all  men  possess  a  substantial  form, 
i.  e.,  a  reasoning  soul,  which,  together  with  the 
physical  body,  constitutes  the  individual,  it  follows 
that  the  body  of  our  Lord  must  feed  and  nourish 
either  this  reasoning  soul  (or  intellect)  or  the  body  of 
the  communicant.  Now  it  is  generally  agreed  that 
it  does  neither.  What  permanent  benefit  can  then 
be  derived  by  the  participant  in  a  Mass?  If  man,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  a  spiritual,  as  well  as  an  in- 
tellectual and  physical  part  to  his  nature,  the  whole 
divine  mystery  becomes  as  intelligible  as  we  mortals 
need  expect ;  Christ  is  spiritually  taken  and  received 
by  the  faithful  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  to  the  renewal 
and  regeneration  of  their  spirits. 

Another  closely  related  evil  of  scholastic  theology 
may  be  mentioned  here  :  the  minimizing  of  the  human 
element  in  our  Saviour.  Aquinas  en  this  point 
followed  the  writings  of  the  Pseudo-Dionysius  the 
Areopagite,  with  his  Neo-Platonic  teachings,  with 
Saints  to  satisfy  man's  craving  for  a  human  mediator. 
This  is  fully  set  out  in  Canon  Gore's  "  Dissertations 
on  Subjects  connected  with  the  Incarnation"  (p. 
206). 


153 

Leo  XIII.  closes  his  Encyclicals  with  appeals  to 
the  Virgin  Mary,  St.  Joseph  and  other  Saints  for  in- 
tercession with  God, — but  he  rarely,  if  ever,  appeals 
Christ  as  the  Great  Intercessor,  although  we  have 
His  express  promise  that  whatsoever  we  should  ask 
in  His  name  we  shall  receive.  (Gospel  of  St.  John 
XVI.,  24.) 

Need  we  wonder  that  in  a  religion  which  recog- 
nizes in  man  only  a  rational  soul,  (as  it  does  in  plants 
a  vegetable  soul  and  in  animals  a  sensitive  soul,)  the 
divine  lineaments  of  the  Saviour  are  fading  away,  as 
it  were,  in  a  dissolving  view,  to  be  replaced  by  the 
sharp,  cold  features  of  "  the  Philosopher,"  and  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  comes  only — as  was  said  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent — in  the  mail-bags  from  the  Vatican,  and 
that  even  the  worship  of  God  the  Father  is  being  re- 
duced to  a  faint  Deism  by  the  hero-worship  of  a 
crowd  of  dei  minores  ?  What  chance  has  the  patient 
when  the  physician  not  only  ignores  the  only  possible 
remedy  but  even  denies  the  existence  of  the  one 
organ  through  which  the  remedy  could  be  taken 
into  the  system  ? 

Why  should  we  be  surprised  at  the  slow  progress 
of  Christianity  under  Roman  Catholic  guidance  any 
more  than  we  should  wonder  at  the  slow  progress  of 
an  ocean  steamship,  whose  captain  was  ignorant  of,  or 
denied  the  existence  of  the  great  engine  beneath  his 
deck,  and  insisted  on  propelling  his  ship  only  by  the 
methods  and  rules,  in  vogue  three  hundred  years 
before  the  Day  of  Pentecost  ? 

The  Church  herself,  through  the  exaltation  of 
reason  and  the  degradation  of  conscience,  has  raised 


154 

that  mighty  broud  of  Rationalists  or  Naturalists,  such 
as  Grotius,  Hobbes,  Puffendorf  and  Rousseau,  who 
now  threaten  to  devour  her ;  see  the  chapter  on  the 
history  of  the  Social  Contract  Theory,  in  the  author's 
"  Trade  Organizations  in  Politics." 

Was  it  not  natural  that  when  the  forged  bands  of 
the  False  Decretals,  which  bound  St.  Thomas,  and, 
as  he  thought,  all  human  reason  to  the  Chair  of  St. 
Peter,  were  proven  by  history  to  be  but  shams  and 
illusions  that  man  should  fall  back  to  the  position 
of  Aristotle,  with  reason,  deprived  of  all  divine  aid, 
as  his  only  guide  ? 

In  vain  would  the  Church  hand  over  all  such 
Naturalists  or  Rationalists  "  to  the  secular  arm  " ! 
There  is  but  one  remedy  :  Let  it  assist  in  replacing 
conscience  on  the  throne  of  human  nature,  but  pros- 
trate, with  imploring  arms,  without  any  human  inter- 
mediary, at  the  foot-stool  of  God,  the  Holy  Ghost. 

As  Maurice  says  in  "  The  Conscience,"  p.  83  : 

"There  is  that  in  me  which  asks  for  the  Right,  for 
that  which  ought  to  have  dominion  over  me ;  there 
is  that  in  me  which  says  emphatically,  '  This  is  not 
that  Right,  this  ought  not  to  have  dominion  over 
me  !'  I  may  be  long  in  learning  what  the  Right  is; 
I  may  make  a  thousand  confused  efforts  to  grasp  it ; 
I  may  try  to  make  it  for  myself ;  I  may  let  others 
make  it  for  me.  But  always  there  will  be  a  witness 
in  me  that  what  I  have  made  or  anyone  has  made, 
is  not  what  I  ought  to  serve ;  that  is  not  the  right, 
not  what  I  am  seeking  for,  not  what  is  seeking  me." 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    CHURCH    AND    SCIENCE. 

Leo  XIII. ,  in  his  Encyclical  on  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  above  cited,  declares  :  "  So,  too,  the  phys- 
ical sciences,  so  much  in  vogue  now,  and  which  by 
their  ingeniously  contrived  inventions  have  every- 
where excited  so  much  merited  attention,  will  have 
not  only  nothing  to  lose,  but  much  to  gain  by  the 
restoration  of  the  ancient  philosophy.  For  in  their 
use  and  improvement,  the  mere  consideration  of 
facts  and  study  of  nature  is  not  enough  ;  but  after 
the  facts  are  established,  it  is  needful  to  go  a  step 
higher,  and  sedulously  employ  every  means  in  find- 
ing out  the  nature  of  corporeal  things,  investigating 
the  laws  and  principles  by  which  they  are  governed, 
and  by  tracing  up  their  system,  their  unity  and  va- 
riety, and  their  mutual  affinity  in  diversity.  To  all 
these  investigations  scholastic  philosophy,  if  handled 
with  skillfulness,  will  bring  power  and  light  and  em- 
pire— we  most  earnestly  beseech  you,  venerable 
brethren,  to  restore  and  extend  far  and  wide  the 

golden  wisdom  of  St.  Thomas for  the 

improvement  of  all  the  sciences." 

What  is  "the  golden  wisdom  "  of  St.  Thomas  as  to 
the  physical  world  ? 

The  importance  of  this  question  will  at  once  be  rec- 
ognized when  we  remember  that  one  merit  of  schol- 
astic philosophy  which  no  one  can  dispute,  is  the 


1 56 

logical  unity  and  consistency  with  which  it  proceeds 
from  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  metaphysics 
to  the  most  practical  acts  of  every  day  life  ;  and 
moreover  that  one  of  the  most  important  teachings  of 
the  Roman  Church,  the  doctrine  of  transubstantia- 
tion,  is  bound  up  with  and  depends  upon  its  well 
defined,  closely  argued  theory  of  the  physical  world. 

It  is  submitted  that  the  so-called  science  of  astrol- 
ogy formed  an  essential  part  of  the  theory  of  St. 
Thomas,  as  to  the  constitution  of  the  physical  world, 
and  that  with  the  elimination  of  that  belief  the  main- 
spring of  his  entire  cosmic  theory  was  removed  and 
the  fragmentary  remains  of  the  system  are  unintelli- 
gible, and  tend  only  to  clog  the  progress  of  true 
science. 

To  prove  this  assertion  it  is  necessary  only  to  con- 
sider the  following  citations  from  the  second  largest 
work  of  St.  Thomas,  known  as  the  Contra  Gentiles 
or  Summa  Philosophica,  in  which  the  Angelic  Doctor 
sets  forth  his  philosophical  system,  as  he  did  after- 
wards his  theology  in  the  Summa  Theologiae. 

In  brief,  following  Aristotle,  his  theory  is  that 
everything  in  the  world,  except  to  a  certain  extent 
the  soul  of  man,  receives  its  original  motive  power 
(*.  ^.,  its  substantial  form),  by  which  it  exists  as  such 
or  such  a  being,  from  the  stars,  and  that  each  of  the 
stars  is  in  turn  guided  by  an  intelligent  spirit  (not 
an  angel) ;  so  that  the  whole  creation  is  a  hierarchy 
working  together  for  the  glory  of  God.  It  follows 
that  if  this  motive  power  from  the  stars  does  not 
exist,  the  whole  system  falls  to  pieces,  and  the  terms 
such  as  *"  substance  "  and  "  accident  "  are  as  useless 


157 

and  worthless  as  the  wheels  and  levers  of  a  perpetual 
motion  machine  ;  a  chain  is  no  stronger  than  its 
weakest  link  ! 

St.  Thomas  could  as  little  imagine  the  physical 
world  without  this  hierarchical  system  as  he  could 
imagine  the  Church  with  an  organization  as  simple 
as  that  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  or  the  State,  as  a 
democracy  with  universal  suffrage  ;  and  to  endeavor, 
therefore,  to  force  modern  science  to  adapt  itself  to 
the  terms  and  requirements  of  scholastic  philosophy 
is  as  sensible  as  it  would  be  to  educate  the  future 
citizens  of  a  republic,  with  universal  suffrage,  on  the 
precepts  of  some  writer  on  Feudal  Law. 

In  fact,  the  fall  of  the  Feudal  System  as  well  as 
that  of  the  hierarchical  mediaeval  Church  is  closely 
connected  with  the  discrediting  of  astrology ;  it  is, 
therefore,  easy  to  understand  the  hate  of  the  Church 
against  Galileo,  and  how  Descartes  trembled  at  pub- 
lishing his  theories  of  the  heavenly  bodies  even  as  an 
hypothesis.  Only  when  this  baneful  influence  was 
removed,  could  a  man  stand  up  and  say :  "  Cogito, 
ergo  sum." 

The  following  quotations  from  the  third  book  of 
St.  Thomas's  Contra  Gentiles  will,  it  is  believed, 
justify  the  foregoing  assertions,  even  to  persons 
who  have  not  made  a  study  of  scholasticism,  and  to 
whom,  therefore,  many  of  the  terms  will  seem 
strange.  The  quotations  are  given  somewhat  in  full 
because  the  book  "  Contra  Gentiles  "  is  not  generally 
attainable. 

Chapter  XXII. :  "  The  celestial  bodies  truly  move 
and  are  moved.  .  .  .  in  so  far  as  they  move  by  moving, 


the  object  of  their  movement  is  to  obtain  a  likeness 
to  Deity,  in  that  they  are  the  cause  of  other  objects. 
But  they  are  the  cause  of  other  objects  by  this,  that 
they  cause  the  coming  into  existence  and  cessation 
of  existence,  and  other  movements  in  these  inferior 
objects.  The  movements  of  heavenly  bodies,  there- 
fore, so  far  as  they  move  is  intended  for  the  coming 
into  existence  and  the  cessation  of  existence,  which 
is  in  those  inferior  objects.  .  .  .  But  in  the  same  way 
the  heavenly  bodies  although  they  are  more  worthy 
than  the  inferior  bodies,  yet  do  not  intend  to  bring 
the  latter  into  existence  and  to  give  them  forms  as 
an  ultimate  end  ;  but  in  this  they  (the  heavenly 
bodies)  aim  at  an  ultimate  end  in  that  they  are  the 
cause  of  others.  .  .  . 

"  If,  therefore,  the  movement  of  heaven  itself  is  in- 
tended for  the  purpose  of  bringing  things  into  ex- 
istence, but  the  existence  of  all  things  is  intended  for 
man  as  the  ultimate  end,  it  is  plain  that  the  move- 
ment of  the  heaven  is  intended  to  have  man  for  its 
object  and  as  the  ultimate  end  of  things  that  are 
generated  and  moved. 

"  Hence  it  is  said  that  God  made  celestial  bodies  for 
the  service  of  all  races  (Deut.  4-19)." 

Chapter  XXIII. — "  From  the  foregoing  also  it  can 
be  shown  that  the  first  movement  of  heaven  is  intel- 
lectual, for  nothing  acting  according  to  its  own 
species  intends  to  produce  a  higher  form  than 
its  own ;  for  everything  which  acts  intends  some- 
thing like  itself.  But  a  heavenly  body,  since  it  acts 
by  its  own  movement,  is  intended  for  the  highest 
form  which  is  the  human  intellect :  which  indeed  is 


159 

higher  than  any  other  form  as  appears  from  the  fore- 
going(Chap.  XXII.).  A  heavenly  body  therefore  does 
not  act  for  producing  a  body  according  to  its  own 
species  as  a  principal  agent,  but  according  to  the 
species  of  some  superior  intellectual  agent,  to  which 
the  heavenly  body  bears  itself  as  the  instrument  to 
the  principal  agent.  But  a  heavenly  body  acts  in 
bringing  into  existence  as  it  is  moved,  therefore  the 
heavenly  body  is  moved  by  some  intellectual  sub- 
stance. Moreover,  everything  that  is  moved  must 
be  moved  by  something,  as  was  proved  above  (Lib.  I., 
Cap.  XII.).  A  heavenly  body  therefore  is  moved  by 
something.  This  other  is  either  separated  from  it  or 
united  to  it,  so  that  the  composite  body  is  said  to  move 
itself,  in  so  far  as  one  part  of  it  is  moved  and  the 
other  the  mover.  But  if  this  latter  is  the  case  (since 
everything  which  moves  itself  is  alive  and  animated) 
it  follows  that  the  heavenly  body  is  alive  and 
animated.  But  it  can  be  animated  by  no  soul  except 
an  intellectual  one — it  follows  therefore  that  it  is 
moved  by  an  intellectual  soul.  But  if  it  is  moved  by 
an  external  motor,  the  latter  is  either  corporeal  or 
incorporeal ;  and  if  it  is  corporeal  it  does  not  move, 
unless  it  is  moved,  as  appears  from  the  foregoing 
(Lib.  I.,  Cap.  XIII.);  it  is  necessary  therefore  that  it 
should  be  moved  by  another  ;  but  as  one  must  not 
resort  to  the  theory  of  an  infinite  number  of  bodies, 
one  will  and  must  come  to  a  first  incorporeal  mover ; 
but  what  is  separated  from  a  body  must  be  intel 
lectual  as  is  shown  above  (Lib.  I.,  Cap.  XLIV.), 
Therefore  the  movement  of  a  heavenly  body  which 
is  the  first  of  bodies,  is  by  an  intellectual  substance." 


i6o 

Chapter  XXIV.—"  But  if  a  heavenly  body  is 
moved  by  an  intellectual  substance,  as  has  been  shown 
(Chap.  XXIII.),  and  the  movement  of  a  heavenly  body 
is  intended  to  bring  into  existence  inferior  bodies,  it 
follows  that  the  coming  into  existence  and  move- 
ments of  these  inferior  bodies  proceeds  from  the  in- 
tention of  an  intelligent  substance.  Therefore  the 
forms  and  movements  of  inferior  bodies  are  caused 
and  intended  by  an  intelligent  substance  as  the  prin- 
cipal agent,  but  by  a  heavenly  body  as  the  instru- 
ment. But  it  is  necessary  that  the  species  of  those 
that  are  caused  and  intended  to  exist  by  an  intel- 
lectual agent,  preexist  in  the  intellect  of  that  agent, 
as  the  forms  created  by  artificers  preexist  in  the 
intellect  of  the  artificer  and  from  them  are  brought 
into  effect.  Therefore  all  forms  which  are  in  these 
inferior  bodies  and  all  their  movements  are  deter- 
mined by  the  intellectual  forms  which  are  in  the 
intellect  of  one  of  these  substances  or  of  several  of 
them.  And  on  account  of  this  Boctius  says  (De 
Trinit.,  C.  3)  that  the  forms  which  are  in  matter  come 
from  forms  that  are  without  matter,  and  in  so  far, 
the  statement  of  Plato  is  verified  that  separate  forms 
are  the  origin  of  material  forms,  although  he  claims 
that  they  exist  by  themselves  and  immediately  cause 
perceptible  forms ;  but  we  place  them  as  existing  in 
the  intellect  and  causing  inferior  forms  by  the  move- 
ment of  the  heaven.  Since  truly  everything  which 
is  moved  by  another  per  se  and  not  by  accident,  is 
directed  by  it  to  the  end  of  its  movement,  but  a 
heavenly  body  is  moved  by  an  intellectual  substance 
and  causes  by  its  movement  all  movements  in  these 


inferior  bodies,  it  is  necessary  that  a  celestial 
body  is  directed  towards  its  end  by  an  intellectual 
substance,  and  consequently  inferior  bodies  are 
directed  in  the  same  way  to  their  various  ends. 

"  So  therefore  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  natural 
bodies  without  sense  are  moved  and  act  toward  an 
end.  For  they  tend  to  an  end  as  directed  by  an 
intelligent  substance,  as  an  arrow  tends  to  the  mark 
directed  by  the  archer ;  for  as  an  arrow  follows  its 
inclination  to  a  mark  or  the  end  determined  by  the 
force  of  the  archer,  so  natural  bodies  follow  the 
inclination  to  natural  ends  from  natural  movers,  from 
which  proceed  their  forms  and  virtues  and  move- 
ments. Hence  also  it  appears  that  every  work  of 
nature  is  the  work  of  an  intelligent  substance  ;  for 
the  principal  effect  is  attributed  to  the  first  mover, 
directing  toward  an  end  rather  than  to  the  instru- 
ments by  which  he  directs  ;  and  on  account  of  this 
the  works  of  nature  are  found  to  proceed  orderly  to 
an  end  as  the  works  of  a  wise  man.  It  is  plain  there- 
fore that  also  those  who  lack  sense  can  act  for  an 
end  and  seek  a  good  by  natural  appetite  and  the 
divine  likeness  and  its  proper  perfection — hence  it 
appears  that  all  things  seek  the  divine  likeness  as 
their  ultimate  end." 

Chapter  XXVIII.— "All  things  are  governed  by 
God  through  the  mediation  of  intellectual  creatures. 
Since  it  pertains  to  divine  Providence  that  order 
should  be  preserved  in  things,  but  a  proper  order  is 
one  which  descends  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest 
proportionately,  it  is  necessary  that  divine  Provi- 
dence should  extend  by  some  proportion  even  to  the 


1 62 

lowest  things.  But  this  proportion  is  that  the  high- 
est beings  are  under  God  and  governed  by  him,  so 
inferior  creatures  should  be  under  higher  ones  and 
governed  by  them.  But  among  all  creatures  the 
highest  are  the  intellectual  ones,  as  appears  from  the 
foregoing  (Chap.  XLIX.).  The  reason  of  divine 
Providence,  therefore,  demands  that  other  creatures 

should  be  ruled  by  rational  creatures 

Moreover,  what  exists  by  itself  is  the  cause  of  that 
which  exists  by  something  els^.  But  only  intel- 
lectual creatures  operate  by  themselves,  as  if  they 
were  masters  of  their  own  acts  by  their  free  will ; 
but  other  creatures  operate  from  the  necessity  of 
nature  ;  as  if  moved  by  another.  Therefore  intel- 
lectual creatures  by  their  work  are  the  movers  and 
rulers  of  other  creatures. 

Chapter  LXXXII. — "  Inferior  bodies  are  ruled  by 
God  through  superior  bodies. 

"  Since  intellectual  substances  are  superior  and  in- 
ferior, so  also  in  corporeal  substances.  But  intel- 
lectual substances  are  ruled  by  the  superior  ones,  as 
the  disposition  of  divine  Providence  descends  pro- 
portionally even  to  the  lowest,  as  shown  above  (Cap. 
LXX.  et  seq.}.  Therefore,  by  equal  reason,  inferior 
bodies  are  governed  by  superior  bodies. 

"  Moreover,  so  much  as  one  body  is  higher  in  its 
place  than  another,  so  much  more  perfect  is  it  found 
to  be  in  its  form  ;  for  water  is  of  better  form  than 
the  earth,  and  air  is  of  better  form  than  water,  and 
fire  is  of  better  form  than  air.  But  the  heavenly 
bodies  are  in  place  higher  than  all  the  bodies.  They 
are  therefore  of  better  form  than  all  other  bodie«; 


therefore  more  active.  Therefore  they  act  on  infe- 
rior bodies,  and  thus  by  them  inferior  bodies  are  ruled. 

"  Also  what  is  in  its  nature  perfect  and  without 
contradiction  is  of  more  universal  virtue  than  that 
which  in  its  nature  does  not  exist  without  its  con- 
trary  But  celestial  bodies  in  their  nature 

are  without  opposite  qualities ;  for  they  are  not 
light  nor  heavy,  nor  hot  nor  cold;  but  inferior 
bodies  are  not  completed  in  their  nature  without 
some  contrary  quality  ;  and  this  even  their  move- 
ment shows ;  for  in  the  circular  movement  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  there  is  no  opposite  principle,  hence 
there  can  be  in  them  no  violence  ;  but  the  move- 
ments of  the  lower  bodies  are  in  opposite  directions, 
as  the  movement  up  or  a  movement  down.  There- 
fore heavenly  bodies  are  of  more  universal  virtue 
than  lower  bodies.  But  universal  virtues  are  the 
movers  of  particular  virtues,  as  appears  from  what 
has  been  said  (Cap.  LXX.).  Therefore  heavenly 
bodies  move  and  govern  lower  bodies. 

"  Moreover,  it  was  shown  above  (Cap.  LXXVIII.) 
that  all  things  are  ruled  by  intellectual  substances. 
But  heavenly  bodies  more  nearly  resemble  intellect- 
ual substances  than  other  bodies,  in  so  far  as  they 
are  immutable  ;  they  are  also  nearer  to  them,  in  that 
they  are  moved  directly  by  them,  as  shown  above 
(Lib.  II.,  Cap.  LXX.,  et  Lib.  III.,  Cap.  LXXX.). 
Therefore  by  them  inferior  bodies  are  ruled.  .  .  . 

"  But  heavenly  bodies  only  among  corporeal  bodies 
are  unchangeable,  as  is  shown  by  their  disposition, 
which  is  always  found  to  be  the  same.  The  heav- 
enly body  is  therefore  the  cause  of  every  change  in 


164 

those  things  which  change.  But  change  in  these 
inferior  bodies  is  the  beginning  of  all  movement. 
.  .  .  .  It  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  the  heaven 
is  the  cause  of  all  movement  in  these  lower  bodies. 

Chapter  LXXXIV. — "  From  the  foregoing  it  ap- 
pears that  in  those  things  which  concern  the  intel- 
lect, the  heavenly  bodies  are  not  causes 

"But  it  must  be  known  that  although  the  heavenly 
bodies  cannot  be  directly  the  causes  of  our  intellect, 
yet  they  can  indirectly  affect  it.  For  although  the 
intellect  is  not  a  corporeal  virtue,  yet  it  cannot  ful- 
fil its  work  in  us  without  the  cooperation  of  cor- 
poreal virtues,  which  are  imagination  and  the  power 
of  memory  and  thought,  as  appears  from  the  fore- 
going (chap.  LXXIII.  Lib.  III.) ;  and  hence  it  is 
when  the  operation  of  these  virtues  are  impeded  on 
account  of  any  indisposition  of  the  body,  the  opera- 
tion of  the  intellect  is  also  impeded,  and  on  account  of 
this  also  the  goodness  of  the  disposition  of  the  body 
makes  one  apt  to  understand  well  .  .  .  hence  it  is  said 
in  the  second  book  De  Anima  (text,  comm.  94)  that 
'  we  see  men  with  soft  skin  to  have  bright  minds.' 
But  the  condition  of  the  human  body  is  subject  to  the 
heavenly  movement  .  .  .  therefore  indirectly  heaven- 
ly bodies  work  for  the  goodness  of  the  intellect ;  and 
so  as  doctors  can  judge  of  the  goodness  of  the  in- 
tellect from  the  complexion  of  the  body,  as  being  its 
immediate  cause,  so  the  astrologer  from  the  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  bodies  can  judge  of  the  good- 
ness of  the  intellect  as  this  movement  is  the  remote 
cause  of  this  goodness  of  the  intellect.  And  by  this 
way  one  can  verify  what  Ptolemy  said  in  Centiloqu- 


i65 

ium :  '  When  Mercury  shall  have  been  at  the  time  of 
birth  of  any  one  in  any  one  of -the  houses  of  Saturn 
...  he  gives  an  intelligence  apt  to  penetrate  things 
even  to  the  core.'  " 

Chapter  LXXXV.  "  But  from  this  it  appears  that 
heavenly  bodies  are  not  the  causes  of  our  wills  or  of 
our  decisions  .  .  .  but  yet  it  must  be  known  that  al- 
though the  heavenly  bodies  are  not  the  direct  causes 
of  our  decisions,  as  if  they  wofked  directly  on  our 
wills,  nevertheless  indirectly  from  them  some  in- 
fluence is  brought  to  bear  on  our  decisions,  from 
their  influence  on  our  bodies ;  so  when  by  the 
heavenly  bodies  the  air  is  made  intensely  cold,  we 
decide  to  warm  ourselves  at  the  fire  or  do  something 
else  which  suits  the  season  ;  in  another  way,  accord- 
ing as  we  are  impressed  by  them  there  arise  in  us 
certain  passions  or  we  are  made  liable  to  certain 
passions,  as  choleric  men  are  prone  to  anger ;  or 
again  when  their  influence  on  our  bodies  causes  a 
certain  disposition,  we  act  accordingly,  as  when  we 
are  sick  and  consult  a  doctor  ;  moreover  even  human 
actions  are  caused  by  the  heavenly  bodies,  as  in  so 
far  as  any  one  is  deprived  of  reason  and  a  lunatic  and 
is  moved  by  natural  instinct  as  a  brute.  But  it  is 
plain  that  man  resists  these  occasions  or  obeys  them 
according  to  his  reason  ;  but  the  greater  number  of 
men  follow  such  natural  impulses ;  but  few,  that  is 
only  wise  men,  do  not  follow  the  occasion  and 
natural  impulses  of  acting  badly.  On  account  of 
this  Ptolemy  says  in  the  Centiloquium  that  '  The 
wise  soul  helps  the  works  of  the  stars  ; '  and  that 
'an  astrologer  could  not  give  decisions  according 


1 66 

to  the  stars,  unless  he  knows  well  the  strength  of 
the  mind  and  complexion  ; '  and  that  '  an  astrologer 
should  not  say  things  specially  but  generally  because 
while  the  impression  of  the  stars  produces  its  effect 
on  most  people  because  they  do  not  resist  the  in- 
clination  of  their  bodies,  still  it  does  not  do  so  always 
in  those  who  strongly  resist  the  natural  inclination 
by  their  reason.'  ' 

Chapter  XCIT.  "  How  a  man  is  called  fortunate 
and  how  he  is  helped  by  superior  causes."  .  .  . 

"Since  therefore  a  man  is  ordered  according  to 
his  body  under  heavenly  bodies,  according  to  his 
intellect  under  angels,  but  according  to  his  will  under 
God,  something  can  happen  outside  the  intention  of 
man  but  according  to  the  order  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  or  the  disposition  of  the  angels  or  even  of 
God.  For  although  God  only  acts  directly  in  the 
decision  of  man,  yet  the  action  of  angels  influences 
man  in  his  decision  by  persuasion,  and  the  action  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  by  means  of  affecting  his  dispo- 
sition, as  bodily  impressions  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
on  our  bodies  dispose  men  to  certain  elections. 
When,  therefore,  any  one  from  the  impressions  of 
heavenly  bodies  and  superior  causes  as  above  indi- 
cated is  inclined  to  decisions  useful  to  himself,  whose 
use  he  does  not  recognize  by  his  own  reason,  and 
when  from  the  light  of  intellectual  substances  his  in- 
tellect is  illumined  to  understand  them,  and  from  tlu: 
divine  operation  his  will  is  inclined  to  choose  some- 
thing useful  to  himself,  the  reason  for  which  he  is 
ignorant  of,  he  is  said  to  have  good  fortune ;  and 
otherwise,  he  is  said  to  have  bad  fortune  when  from 


1 67 

superior  causes  his  decision  is  inclined  to  the  oppo- 
site, as  it  is  said  of  one,  '  Write  that  man  sterile,  a 
man  who  shall  not  prosper  in  his  days.'  Jer.  22,  30. 

"  .  .  .  It  is  manifest  that  inanimate  bodies 
acquire  certain  powers  and  virtues  from  the 
celestial  bodies  even  besides  those  which  they  cer- 
tainly obtain  from  the  celestial  bodies  as  active 
and  passive  and  elementary  qualities  ;  so  the  power 
of  the  magnet  to  attract  iron  comes  from  the 
virtue  of  a  celestial  body,  and  certain  stones  and 
herbs  have  other  occult  virtues.  Hence  nothing 
prevents  that  a  certain  man  should  have  from  the 
influence  of  a  heavenly  body,  capacity  for  certain 
work  which  another  has  not,  as  a  doctor  in  healing, 
a  farmer  in  planting,  a  soldier  in  conquering." 

Further  information  concerning  the  "  intellectual 
substances "  which  guide  the  stars,  showing  that 
they  are  intelligent,  incorruptible,  and  are  endowed 
with  free  will,  is  found  in  the  second  book  of  the 
same  Summa  Contra  Gentiles. 

The  whole  doctrine  is  repeated  concisely  in  the 
Summa  Theologias  I.,  q.  115,  a.  3,  which  is  entitled: 
"  Whether  celestial  bodies  are  the  causes  of  those 
things  which  here  are  done  by  inferior»bodies  ?  "  The 
answer  is  that  "All  motion  proceeds  from  the  immov- 
able. And,  therefore,  the  more  immovable  things 
are,  the  more  are  they  the  cause  of  those  things 
which  are  movable.  But  the  heavenly  bodies  are 
amongst  bodies  the  most  immovable.  For  they  are 
not  moved  except  by  a  local  motion  (i.  e.,  they  are 
incorruptible).  And,  therefore,  the  movements  of 
these  lower  bodies  which  are  variable  and  multiform, 


1 63 

are  referred  to  the  motion  of  the  celestial  body 
which  is  its  cause.  .  .  .  Active  principles  are  not 
found  in  these  lower  bodies,  except  the  active  qual- 
ities of  the  elements  which  are  heat  and  cold  and 
things  of  that  kind  ;  and  if  it  were  so  that  the  sub- 
stantial forms  of  lower  bodies  do  not  differ  except  by 
these  accidents,  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  place 
above  these  lower  bodies  any  active  principle,  but 
they  would  suffice  for  their  action.  But  to  those 
who  consider  things  rightly,  it  appears  that  acci- 
dents of  this  kind  are  related  as  material  dispositions 
to  the  substantial  form  of  natural  bodies.  But  matter 
does  not  suffice  for  action.  And,  therefore,  above 
these  material  dispositions  it  is  necessary  to  place 
some  active  principle. 

"  Hence,  the  Platonists  place  separate  species  ac- 
cording to  whose  participation  the  lower  bodies  ac- 
quire substantial  forms.  But  this  does  not  appear  to 
suffice.  For  separate  species  are  always  the  same, 
since  they  are  immovable.  And  so  it  would  follow 
that  there  would  be  no  variation  in  the  generation 
arid  corruption  of  these  lower  bodies.  Which  is 
evidently  false.  Hence,  according  to  the  philosopher 
(Aristotle)  in  II.  De  Generatione,  it  is  necessary  to 
place  some  active  principle  which  by  its  presence 
and  absence  causes  the  variation  of  generation  and 
corruption  in  lower  bodies.  And  of  this  kind  are 
the  celestial  bodies,  and,  therefore,  whatever  in  these 
lower  bodies  generates  or  produces  one  of  its  species, 
is,  as  it  were,  the  instrument  of  a  celestial  body.  As 
it.  is  said  in  II.  Physic.  (Aristotle)  that  man  and  the 
sun  produces  a  man." 


169 

The  foregoing  quotations  amply  prove  that  ac- 
cording to  St.  Thomas,  the  force  which  in  this  world 
moves  and  generates  everything,  except  the  soul  of 
man,  comes  from  the  intelligent  spirits  which  guide 
the  stars ;  they  create  the  substantial  forms  through 
which  matter  is  differentiated  into  all  the  objects  of 
the  material  world.  The  stars,  therefore,  furnish 
that  without  which  the  world  cannot  be  imagined, 
and  to  strike  it  out  of  the  system  is  to  remove  the 
motive  power  of  the  universe. 

Modern  Roman  Catholic  writers  try  to  hide  this 
vital  defect  in  their  system  by  pretending  that  the 
forms  themselves  give  life  and  motion  to  matter,  but 
to  St.  Thomas  this  would  have  seemed  as  absurd  as 
if  one  had  said  that  the  mold,  instead  of  the  artist 
made  the  statue. 

St.  Thomas  could  imagine  no  forms,  except  as  the 
expression  of  an  intelligent  being ;  without  the  force 
from  the  stars  the  world  would  have  seemed  as  dead 
as  a  steam  engine  would  be  if  no  steam  existed.  He 
seems  expressly  to  deny  the  possibility  that  sub- 
stance could  act  by  itself  (Summa  I.,  q.  54,  a.  i). 

It  is  true  that  neither  matter  nor  accident  are 
stated  to  be  generated  by  the  stars ;  but  the  substan- 
tial form  is  the  keystone  in  the  arch,  with  matter  on 
one  side  and  accident  on  the  other,  so  placed  that 
neither  of  them  can  stand  alone.  As  to  matter,  this 
could  be  proved  by  many  citations ;  e.  g.,  S.  Thorn., 
q.4,  depot,  a.  3  :  "  Matter  cannot  exist  without  form." 
As  to  the  dependence  of  accident  on  substantial 
forms,  the  authorities  are  very  numerous ;  thus  in 
Summa  I.,  q.  29,  a.  i  ad,  3;  "  For  accidents  are  the 
effects  of  substantial  forms  and  show  them  forth." 


I/O 

The  doctrine  is  summed  up  in  Summa,  L,  q.  105, 
a.  i.:  "Plants  and  mineral  bodies  resemble  the  sun 
and  the  stars,  by  whose  virtue  they  are  formed." 

Leo  XIII.  in  his  Encyclical  on  Anglican  Orders 
declares  that  it  is  the  form  which  gives  character  to 
matter. 

Old  Galileo  in  prison,  with  his  failing  eyesight, 
may  well  have  congratulated  himself  that  in  de- 
stroying astrology  he  had  done  a  work,  worthy  of 
a  dying  Samson's  last  revenge. 

Nor  can  this  central  pillar  of  their  system,  the  force 
which  created  it,  the  forma  substantialis,  be  replaced 
by  anything  else,  nor  can  its  absence  be  disregarded. 
The  functions  and  powers  of  the  spirits  which  guided 
the  stars  and  created  these  astral  bodies  must  be  dis- 
posed of  in  some  manner — either  they  can  be  returned 
to  the  Diety  or  they  can  be  attributed  to  the  Forms 
themselves ;  if  the  former  plan  is  adopted,  and  God 
is  supposed  to  act  directly  upon  matter,  one  falls 
into  the  occasionalism  of  Mallebranche,  which  the 
present  reigning  school  of  Jesuits  has  condemned 
more  severely  even  than  Protestantism;  and  if  the 
latter  plan  is  adopted,  one  builds  up  an  unintelligible 
system  dangerously  near  to  a  materialistic  panthe- 
ism, in  which  the  form  is  supposed  to  create  itself  and 
which,  therefore,  explains  nothing. 

The  latter  theory  is  the  one  now  in  vogue  in  Jesuit 
schools,  as  illustrated  by  the  following  extracts  from 
the  Metaphysics  of  the  School  by  Father  Harper, 
S.  J.  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1884).  So  far  as  this  system 
is  at  all  intelligible,  it  seems  to  represent  the  sub- 
stantial form  as  emerging  proprio  motu  like  a  Jack-in- 


the-box,  from  imperceptible  matter  and  then  instan- 
taneously diving  back  into  it  again  and  thereby 
"  informing  "  it  and  rendering  it  appreciable  by  the 
senses  and  endowing  it  with  all  its  essential  qualities. 
It  is  submitted  that  the  following  extracts  show  that 
the  foregoing  statement  is  not  exaggerated. 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  563)  '''But  the  Form  according  to 
its  essential  nature  is  the  act  of  matter  in  such  wise 
that,  as  the  Angelic  Doctor  repeatedly  monishes,  it 
is  not  so  much  an  entity  itself,  as  that  by  which 
another  entity  (that  is  to  say,  the  composite)  is  cons- 
tituted. It  has  no  independent  existence.  By  the 
mere  fact  that  it  is,  it  actuates  or  informs  matter. 
It  is  educed  out  of  the  potentiality  of  matter  ;  and 
so  educed  that,  for  so  long  as  it  exists,  it  essentially 
exists  as  the  Form  of  matter.  But  the  actuation  of 
matter  and  the  constitution  of  the  composite  are 
really  one  and  the  same  thing,  considered  from  two 
different  points  of  view." 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  504.)  "  For  these  reasons  the  Form 
is  said  to  be  educed  out  of  the  potentiality  of  the 
matter  ;  while  the  composite  substance  is  said  to  be 
created,  produced,  generated.  Nevertheless  the  pro- 
ductive action  is  one  and  the  same." 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  386.)  "  The  Form,  then,  may  be  said 
to  practically  render  it  (matter)  actual  to  sense." 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  567.)  "The  causality  of  the  Form  is 
not,  strictly  speaking,  the  union  of  the  Form  with 
the  matter,  but  the  actuation  of  the  matter  by  the 
Form ;  as  will  be  shown  in  a  later  Thesis.  Now 
this  information  virtually  contains  in  its  concept  that 
the  Form  is  educed  out  of  the  matter ;  that  it  is 


172 

essentially  dependent  on  the  matter  tor  its  first 
existence  as  well  as  for  its  continuance  in  being ; 
and,  finally,  that  it  is  the  act  of  matter.  But  these 
three  elements  equally  connote  the  local  presence  of 
the  Form  with  the  matter,  as  an  integral  part  or  at 
least  accompanying  property  of  the  formal  causa- 
tion." 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  503.)  "Now,  to  educe  the  Form  out 
of  the  potentiality  of  matter  is  in  every  way  indenti- 
cal  with  the  actuation  of  matter.  ...  It  needs 
no  distinct  unitive  action  to  compound  two  entities 
that  cannot  be  made  to  exist  apart  even  by  miracle. 

Therefore  the  eduction  of  the  Form  is  the  consti- 
tution of  the  substance." 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  561.)  "  It  (this  definition)  is  borrowed 
from  Suarez.  A  substantial  bodily  Form,  then,  is  a 
simple  and  incomplete  substance  which,  as  the  act  of 
matter,  constitutes  together  with  the  matter  the 
integral  essence  of  the  composite  substance." 

(Vol.  II.,  p.  520.)  "  From  a  diversity  of  substantial 
Forms  there  follows  a  diversity  of  natural  opera- 
tions." 

(Vol.  III.,  p.  195.)  "  Substance  can  in  a  manner 
produce  accidents,  without  any  change  in  itself,  by 
natural  resultance ;  and  accidents  in  consequence 
can  be  the  causes  of  accidents." 

How  dangerously  near  to  materialistic  pantheism 
these  theories  lead  is  apparent.  St.  Thomas,  who 
believed  that  the  Forms  were  created  and  guided  by 
immaterial  spirits  could  use  such  quotations  as  the 
following  in  Contra  Gentiles,  Lib.  III.,  Cap.  XCVIL: 
"  Again :  From  the  ^diversity  of  Forms  we  gather 


173 

the  reason  of  order  in  beings.  For  since  the  Form  is 
that  by  which  an  entity  has  being  and  every  entity, 
by 'reason  of  its  having  being,  approaches  to  the  like- 
ness of  God  who  is  His  own  simple  Being  ;  it  neces- 
sarily follows  that  the  Form  is  no  other  than  a  parti- 
cipation of  the  Divine  likeness  in  entities.  Hence 
in  unison  with  this  conclusion,  Aristotle,  in  the  first 
Book  of  the  Physics,  speaking  of  Form  declares  that 
'  it  is  something  Divine  and  object  of  desire.' ' 

But  it  means  a  very  different  thing  when  such 
passages  are  repeated  with  approval  by  a  modern 
writer,  such  as  Father  Harper  in  his  Metaphysics  of 
the  School,  who  believes  no  longer  »in  these  star- 
guiding  spirits,  but  only  in  Forms,  continually  im- 
mersed in  matter,  as  the  direct  motive  power  of  the 
world.  If  there  is  in  every  particle  of  matter, 
"  something  Divine  and  the  object  of  desire,"  what 
is  the  difference  between  this  teaching  and  materi- 
alistic pantheism  ?  Such  passages  as  the  following 
from  Father  Harper's  volume  II.,  p.  520,  which  could 
be  multiplied  indefinitely,  certainly  breathe  such  a 
spirit : 

"  Since  then,  there  is  an  essential  order  in  material 
substances ;  the  substantial  Form,  which  is  the 
intrinsic  principle  of  the  essential  nature  of  each,  and, 
in  consequence,  of  the  diversity,  must  likewise  be 
the  intrinsic  principle  of  the  cosmic  order." 

Why  blame  Spinoza  for  Pantheism  when  he  only 
identified  Deity  with  all-containing  matter? 

To  find  an  answer  to  these  theories,  so  lauded  by 
Leo  XIII.,  one  must  go  back  two  centuries  and  take 
down  the  dusty  folios  which  laughed  scholasticism 


into  "  the  modest  retirement  in  the  Italian  and  Iber- 
ian Peninsulas." 

The  answer  to  the  theory  last  referred  to  is  well 
given  by  Father  Mallebranche,  a  devout  believer  in 
all  the  dogmas  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  of 
that  day,  in  his  "  Search  after  Truth"  (Second  Part, 
Book  VI.,  Chap.  III.):  "Philosophers  not  only 
speak  without  understanding  themselves,  when  they 
explain  the  effects  of  nature  by  some  beings  of 
which  they  have  no  particular  idea ;  but  also 
establish  a  principle  whence  very  false  and  perni- 
cious consequences  may  directly  be  drawn. 

"  For  supposing  with  them  that  there  are  in  bodies 
certain  entities  distinguished  from  matter,  and  hav- 
ing no  distinct  idea  of  those  entities ;  'tis  easie  to 
imagine  that  they  are  the  real  or  principal  causes  of 
the  effects  we  see.  And  this  is  the  very  opinion  of 
the  vulgar  philosophers.  The  prime  reason  of  their 
supposing  those  substantial  forms,  real  qualities, 
and  such  like  entities  is  to  explain  the  effects  of 
nature  :  But  when  we  come  attentively  to  consider 
the  idea  we  have  of  cause  or  power  of  acting,  we 
cannot  doubt  but  that  it  represents  something  di- 
vine :  For  the  idea  of  a  sovereign  power  is  the 
idea  of  a  sovereign  divinity ;  and  the  idea  of  a 
subordinate  power,  the  idea  of  an  inferiour  divin- 
ity, yet  a  true  divinity ;  at  least  accord'ng  to  the 
opinion  of  the  heathens,  supposing  it  to  b3  the  idea 
of  a  true  power  or  cause.  And  therefore  we 
admit  something  divine  in  all  the  bodies  that  sur- 
round us,  when  we  acknowledge  forms,  faculties, 
etc.,  that  are  capable  of  producing  some  effects  by 


175 

the  force  of  their  nature ;  and  thus  insensibly  ap- 
prove of  the  sentiments  of  the  heathens,  by  too 
great  a  deference  for  their  philosophy.  Faith  in- 
deed corrects  us ;  but  it  may  perhaps  be  said,  that 
the  mind  is  Pagan,  whilst  the  heart  is  a  Christian. 

"  Moreover  it  is  a  hard  matter  to  persuade  our- 
selves that  we  ought  neither  to  fear  nor  love  true 
powers  and  beings,  that  can  act  upon  us  with  some 
pain  or  reward  us  with  some  pleasure.  And  as  love 
and  fear  are  a  true  adoration,  it  is  hard  again  to 
imagine  why  they  must  not  be  adored. 

"  There  are  some  who  affirm  that  the  sub- 
stantial form  produces  forms  ;  and  the  accidental 
form,  accidents.  Others  say  that  the  forms  produce 
both  other  forms  and  accidents.  Others  still,  that 
bare  accidents  are  not  only  capable  of  producing  ac- 
cidents but  even  forms.  But  it  must  not  be  imagined 
that  those,  for  instance,  who  say  that  accidents  can 
produce  forms  by  virtue  of  the  form  they  are  joined 
to,  understand  it  the  same  way.  For  one  part  of  them 
will  have  accidents  to  be  the  very  force  or  virtue  of 
the  substantial  form.  Another  that  they  imbibe  into 
them  the  influence  of  the  form  and  only  act  so  by 
virtue  of  it,  and  a  third,  lastly,  that  will  have  them 
to  be  but  instrumental  causes." 

How  closely  the  doctrine  of  "  efficient  cause  "  was. 
bound  up  with  that  of  the  substantial  form,  so  that 
they  both  must  stand  or  fall  together,  appears  from 
the  following  extract  from  Harper's  Metaphysics, 
of  the  School: 

(Vol.  III.,  p.  57.)  "The  difficult  question  that  is 
submitted  to  discussion  and  examination  in  this  and 


succeeding  Theses,  turns  upon  the  nature  of  Efficient 
Causality — or  rather  upon  the  principiants  of  the 
Efficient  Causality — by  which  the  substantial  form  is 
educed  out  of  the  potentiality  of  matter  and  the 
composite  substance  generated." 

(Vol.  III.,  p.  224.)  "A  property  flows  from  the 
essence  or  substantial  form,  as  its  natural  result. 
That  agent,  therefore,  which  is  efficient  cause  of  the 
existence  of  the  essential  nature,  is  ipso  facto 
Efficient  Cause  of  the  property  resulting  from  this 
essence.  But  the  Efficient  Cause  of  the  essential 
nature  is  the  generator,  as  is  clear.  Therefore, 
the  generator  is  likewise  Efficient  Cause  of  the 
property." 

Schopenhauer's  criticism  of  Aristotle's  "  causa 
efficiens,''  applies  with  equal  force  to  the  system  of 
St.  Thomas. 

On  this  theory  too  was  based  the  Aquinate's 
famous  idea  of  the  "second  cause"  which  is  the  very 
citadel  of  scholastic  philosophy  and  theology,  as 
being  an  attempt  to  explain  predestination ;  in  the 
most  celebrated  passage  (Summa,  I.,  II.,  q.  6,  a.  i) 
the  argument  on  free-will  is  drawn  from  the  analogy 
of  the  spirit  guiding  the  stars. 

In  answer  to  this  theory,  we  need  only  cite 
Father  Mallebranche  in  his  "  Concerning  the 
Search  after  Truth  "  (id.) : 

"  There  are  philosophers  who  maintain  that 
second  causes  act  by  their  matter,  figure  and  mo- 
tion, and  these  in  one  sense  are  right  enough.  Others 
by  their  substantial  form.  Many  by  accidents  or 
qualities,  some  by  matter  and  form  ;  others  by  form 


177 

and  accidents ;  others  still  by  certain  virtues  or 
faculties  distinct  from  all  this.  .  .  .  Nor  can  the 
philosophers  compromise  about  the  action  whereby 
second  causes  produce  their  effects.  For  some  of 
them  pretend  that  causality  ought  not  to  be  pro- 
duced, since  it  is  this  which  produces.  Others  will 
that  they  truly  act  by  their  own  action.  But  they 
are  involved  in  so  many  labyrinths  in  explaining 
precisely  wherein  this  action  consists,  and  there  are 
so  many  different  opinions  about  it,  that  I  cannot 
find  in  my  heart  to  recite  them." 

How  little  there  would  be  left  of  Scholastic  Philo- 
sophy if  the  doctrines  of  the  Formal  Cause  and  the 
Efficient  Cause  were  eliminated,  any  one  with  the 
slightest  acquaintance  with  Aristotelian  or  Scholas- 
tic Philosophy  will  know. 

Need  we  wonder  that  with  such  a  philosophy  as 
that  of  St.  Thomas,  Roman  Catholics  worship  relics  ? 

The  utter  impossibility  of  understanding  such 
modern  works  as  "  The  Physical  System  of  St. 
Thomas,"  by  Father  Giovanni  Maria  Carnoldi,  S.  J., 
translated  by  Edward  Heneage  Bering  (Benzinger 
Bros.,  New  York),  need  not  be  marveled  at  when  we 
remember  that  they  dare  not  refer  in  any  way  to  St. 
Thomas'  belief  in  astrology,  and  that  they  are  in 
effect  trying  to  conceal  this  awful  hiatus  in  their 
system — this  skeleton  in  the  closet. 

But  none  of  these  systems  can  be  called  that  of 
St.  Thomas  ;  his  system  was  at  least  logical,  if  you 
granted  the  premises,  i.  e.,  the  influence  of  minds  rul- 
ing the  stars  and  through  them  the  physical  world ; 
see  "  New  Essays  concerning  Human  Understand- 
ing," by  Leibnitz  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  p.  643). 

The   whole  theory   of  political  and   social   rule, 


government  from  above  downward,  was  based  upon 
this  analogy  ;  in  De  Regimine  Principum,  liber.  III., 
cap.  II.,  St.  Thomas  says  :  "  If  there  is  order  in  cor- 
poreal movements,  much  more  will  there  be  in 
spiritual  matter.  But  as  we  see  in  bodies  that  the 
lower  are  moved  by  the  higher  and  all  are  re. 
duced  to  the  movement  of  the  highest,  which  is 
the  ninth  sphere  according  to  Ptolemy  in  i 
distinct  Almagesti ;  but  according  to  Aristotle  in 
2  de  Caelo,  it  is  the  eighth  ....  which  move- 
ment indeed  blessed  Dionysius  in  lib.  de  divinis 
Nominibus  and  de  caelesti  Hierarchia  relates  to  us, 
distinguishing  in  spiritual  substances  movement  as 
in  bodies,  that  is  circular,  straight  and  oblique. 
Which  movements  indeed  are  certain  illuminations 
which  they  receive  from  their  superiors  for  action, 
as  the  same  Doctor  explains.  But  among  all  men, 
kings,  princes  and  other  rulers  of  the  world  should 
be  more  ready  to  receive  this  illumination.  .  .  .  And 
so  it  is  manifest  in  considering  motion,  that  all  do- 
minion is  from  God."  White's  History  of  the  War- 
fare of  Science  with  Theology  gives  a  picture  of 
this  hierarchical  organization  of  the  heavens  :  "  Thus 
was  the  vast  system  developed  by  these  three 
leaders  of  mediaeval  thought  (the  Pseudo-Dionysius, 
the  Areopagite  Peter  Lombard  and  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas) ;  and  now  came  the  man  who  wrought  it 
yet  more  deeply  into  European  belief,  the  poet 
divinely  inspired  who  made  the  system  part  of  the 
world's  life.  Pictured  by  Dante,  the  empyrean  and 
the  concentric  heavens,  paradise,  purgatory  and 
hell,  were  seen  of  all  men ;  the  God  Triune,  seated 


179 

on  his  throne  upon  the  circle  of  the  heavens,  as  real 
as  the  Pope  seated  in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter ;  the  sera 
phim,  cherubim  and  thrones,  surrounding  the  Al 
mighty,  as  real  as  the  cardinals  surrounding  the 
Pope ;  the  three  great  orders  of  angels  in  heaven,  as 
real  as  the  three  great  orders,  bishops,  priests  and 
deacons,  on  earth ;  and  the  whole  system  of  spheres, 
each  revolving  within  the  one  above  it,  and  all  mov- 
ing about  the  earth,  subject  to  the  primum  mobile,  as 
real  as  the  feudal  system  of  western  Europe,  subject 
to  the  Emperor." 

It  is  from  this  supposed  analogy  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  physical  universe  by  the  stars,  or  rather 
by  their  guiding  spirits,  that  the  Papacy  was  sup- 
posed to  sanctify  and  justify  the  power  of  temporal 
princes  and  these  in  turn  passed  down  authority  to 
all  the  subordinate  rulers  of  the  people. 

The  practical  objection  to  teaching  this  system  of 
physics  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  apart  from 
its  theoretical  absurdity,  the  false  conclusions  in 
politics  and  religion  which  are  drawn  from"  it,  and 
the  dry-rot  with  which  it  strikes  all  true  metaphysics, 
is  that  it  gives  no  place  for  the  modern  doctrine  of 
force  as  distinct  from  or  independent  of  matter. 
Thus  Father  Harper  says  in  his  introduction  to  the 
Metaphysics  of  the  School  (p.  XLVIT.): 

"  Force  is  often  set  before  us  as  a  substance,  existing 
of  itself,  and  (as  it  were),  in  its  own  right,  a  concept 
of  it,  which  is  consonant  neither  with  the  common 
acceptation  of  the  term,  nor  with  the  examples  of  it 
that  are  subject  to  human  observation." 

By  no  ingenuity  can  the  theory  of  the  transmuta- 


i8o 

tion  or  conservation  of  energy  as  worked  out  by 
Grove,  Helmholtz,  Faraday,  and  others  be  brought 
under  a  system  which  recognizes  the  force  of  the 
stars  as  a  sufficient  explanation  for  the  attraction 
of  iron  by  the  magnet,  and  no  Roman  Catholic 
writer,  if  he  were  bold  enough  to  insert  this  modern 
doctrine  of  force  into  his  system,  could  thenceforth 
claim  that  it  was  the  system  of  St.  Thomas. 

To  the  faithful  follower  of  the  latter,  the  experi- 
ments of  our  distinguished  countryman,  Count 
Rumford,  whereby  he  proved  that  when  fire  was 
applied  to  metal,  the  heat  developed  did  not  come 
from  the  iron,  do  no  exist ;  see  Dr.  Plassman's 
Psychology,  page  180. 

Alchemy  and  astrology  were  the  natural  products 
of  the  teachings  of  St.  Thomas,  instead  of  chemistry 
and  astronomy. 

The  following  extract  from  Introduction  &  /' 'His- 
toire  de  I ' Asie  by  L6on  Cahun  (Paris :  Collin  &  Cie.) 
shows  how  this  philosophy  affected  the  most  ener- 
getic ot  Asiatics,  the  Turks  : 

"While  the  Europeans,  under  the  spur  of  Helenism, 
and  dazzled  by  the  rediscovery  of  antiquity,  were 
launching  boldly  out  towards  the  unknown,  towards 
free  research,  towards  revolt,  the  Asiatics,  their 
equals  till  the  fifteenth  century,  let  themselves 
docilely  be  brought  back  to  the  School  as  conceived 
by  the  sages  of  the  orthodox  Khalif.  They  dis- 
covered as  a  novelty  Aristotle  (as  deformed  by  the 
Arabs),  they  returned  to  the  '  Amalgest,'  they 
plunged  into  Avicenna,  their  compatriot,  they  began 
again  in  Turkish  the  epoch  of  the  Sassanidae ;  they 


'  marked  time,'  but  never  advanced  (Us  pittiribrent  snr 
place).  All  their  intellectual  activity,  and  they  had 
as  much  as  others,  spent  itself  in  scholasticism,  in 
jurisprudence,  in  rhetoric ;  with  great  efforts  they 
reconstituted  Euclid,  Ptolemy,  Galen,  Hippocrates — 
they  hardly  dared  touch  Plato ;  to  go  further  would 
have  been  to  lose  themselves.  Little  by  little,  with 
the  help  of  the  monks,  they  came  to  think  only  of 
their  salvation  and  to  be  content  with  the  Koran." 

St.  Thomas  frequently  cites  the  '  Amalgest '  and 
Avicenne,  above  referred  to ;  need  we  wonder,  then, 
that  the  Shadow  of  God  on  Earth  and  the  Vicar  of 
Christ  on  Earth  find  so  little  difficulty  in  under- 
standing and  approving  each  other's  policy  ? 

Why  should  our  school  teachers  be  taught  from 
text  books  which  cite  with  approval,  as  Dr.  Plass- 
mann  does  in  his  Ps}'-chology,  page  148,  such  sen- 
tences as :  "  The  matter  of  all  terrestrial  things  is  the 
same ;  but  the  matter  of  the  heavenly  bodies  appears 
to  be  of  a  different  kind  than  that  of  terrestrial 
bodies"?  (Summa,  I.  q.  66,  a.  2.)  The  same  princi- 
ples are  taught  in  the  Jesuit  Seminary,  in  Woodstock, 
Maryland.  For  them,  Helmholtz  has  never  proved, 
by  means  of  the  spectrum,  that  the  stars  are  com- 
posed of  the  same  elements  as  the  earth.  Need  we 
wonder  at  the  few  practical  inventions  made  in 
Roman  Catholic  countries  ?  Aristole  considered  the 
applied  sciences,  like  the  occupation  by  which  a  man 
gains  his  living,  vulgar. 

That  this  whole  scholastic  physical  system  is  of 
the  utmost  importance  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
>s  sufficiently  apparent ;  the  doctrine  of  transub- 


182 

stantiation  has  been  formulated  upon  the  belief  that 
this  system  was  absolutely  true  and  would  continue 
so  for  all  time.  But  how  can  we  believe  that  bread 
has  a  substantial  form,  and  that  this  form  is  gene- 
rated by  the  stars  unless  we  believe  in  astrology  ? 
And  if  we  do  not  believe  in  astrology,  whence  comes 
the  substantial  form  of  the  bread  which  is  removed 
in  the  Holy  Eucharist  at,  the  time  of  consecration,  to 
give  place  to  that  of  our  Lord  ?  One  of  the  argu- 
ments against  Galileo  in  his  days  was  that  his  scien- 
tific ideas  were  "  leading  to  a  denial  of  the  Real 
Presence  in  the  Eucharist."  (White's  History  of 
Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology.)  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  adopt  the  modern  theory  of  atoms,  which 
has  prevailed  generally  in  the  scientific  world  since 
the  time  of  Des  Cartes,  how  is  it  possible  to  believe 
in  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  ?  So  far  as  the 
author  knows,  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  state  the 
doctrine  of  this  theory  of  the  physical  world.  Des 
Cartes  is  mentioned  only  with  sneers  and  ridicule 
in  modern  Roman  Catholic  literature. 

Nor  would  the  attempt  to  state  the  doctrine  on 
any  theory  of  nature  in  harmony  with  the  theory  of 
correlation  of  forces  and  conservation  of  energy,  be 
more  easy;  at  all  events,  it  would  be  as  little 
consonant  with  the  teachings  of  St.  Thomas  as  with 
those  of  the  whole  mediaeval  Church. 

In  fact  in  every  Thomistic  Roman  Catholic  argu- 
ment, if  carefully  considered,  will  be  found  this  same 
defect,  like  the  spot  between  Siegfried's  shoulders, 
--only  in  this  case  it  should  be  designated  by  a  star, 
instead  of  a  leaf. 


It  is  therefore  submitted  that  until  it  is  certain  that 
these  antiquated  theories  of  matter,  which  were 
evolved  from  his  inner  consciousness  by  Aristotle 
about  three  hundred  years  before  Christ,  and  elabo- 
rated in  the  Dark  Ages  by  the  Aquinate,  together 
with  the  social,  political  and  theological  theories 
which  were  based  upon  them,  are  positively  repu- 
diated by  the  Church,  it  is  no  safe  teacher.  The  at- 
tempt to  introduce  those  theories  again  into  modern 
life  can  only  be  compared  to  the  foolish  sally  of  Don 
Quixote,  equipped  in  the  armor  of  a  past  generation. 

The  challenge  made  by  Father  Mallebranche  three 
hundred  years  ago,  in  his  Book  IV.,  Chap.  III.,  is 
still  unanswered  and  his  criticisms  apply  as  well  to 
the  Angel  of  the  Schools  as  to  "  the  Philosopher  ":  "  I 
make  no  question  but  there  are  such  as  honestly 
believe  that  he  whom  they  style  Prince  of  Pkiloso- 
p]iers,  is  guilty  of  no  Error ;  and  that  his  works  are 
the  magazines  of  true  and  sound  philosophy.  There 
are  men  who  imagine,  that  in  the  space  of  two 
thousand  years,  the  time  since  he  wrote,  no  man  has 
been  able  to  say  he  has  made  a  blot  or  been  guilty 
of  a  mistake ;  and  so  making  him  infallible  in  a 
manner,  they  can  pin  their  faith  upon  him  and  quote 
him  as  infallible.  But  'tis  not  worth  while  to  stand 
to  answer  such  gentlemen  as  these,  because  their 
ignorance  must  needs  be  exceeding  gross,  and  merit- 
ing more  to  be  pitied  than  oppugned ;  I  aesire  only 
of  them,  if  they  know  that  either  Aristotle  or  any 
of  his  followers,  have  deduced  any  truth  from  the 
principles  peculiar  to  him  ;  or  if  possibly  themselves 
have  done  it,  that  they  should  declare  it,  explain  it 


184 

and  prove  it ;  and  I  promise  them  never  more  to 
speak  but  to  Aristotle's  praise  and  commendation. 
His  principles  shall  no  longer  be  caluminated  as 
useless,  since  they  have  at  least  been  serviceable  to 
prove  one  truth.  But  we  have  no  reason  to  hope 
this,  for  the  challenge  has  been  long  since  offered, 
and  M.  Des  Cartes,  among  the  rest,  has  done  it  in 
his  Metaphysical  Meditation  almost  forty  years  ago, 
and  obliged  himself  to  demonstrate  the  falsehood  of 
that  pretended  truth.  And  there  is  great  prob- 
ability that  no  man  will  ever  venture  to  attempt 
what  M.  Des  Cartes'  greatest  enemies,  and  the  most 
zealous  Defenders  of  Aristotle's  Philosophy  never 
yet  durst  undertake. 

"  I  beg  leave  then  after  this  to  say,  that  it  is  blind- 
ness, slavishness  of  spirit  and  stupidity,  thus  to  betray 
reason  to  the  authority  of  Aristotle,  Plato,  or  what- 
ever other  Philosopher;  that  'tis  loss  of  time  to 
read  them,  out  of  no  other  design  than  to  remember 
their  opinions  ;  and  'tis  to  waste  that  of  others  too, 
to  teach  them  in  that  manner.  That  the  Philoso- 
phers cannot  instruct  us  by  their  authority  ;  and  to 
pretend  to  is  a  piece  of  injustice  :  That  'tis  a  kind 
of  madness  and  impiety  to  take  a  solemn  oath  of 
allegiance  to  them.  And  lastly  that  'tis  to  detain 
truth  in  an  unjust  bondage,  from  interest  and  par- 
tiality, to  oppose  the  new  opinions  of  philosophy, 
that  may  be  true,  to  keep  up  the  credit  of  such  as 
are  known  to  be  either  false  or  useless." 

Science  has  no  conflict  with  religion  as  such — the 
field  of  one  is  the  intellect,  the  field  of  the  other  is 
the  spirit ;  but  it  has  a  fight  to  the  death  against 


i85 

any  religion  which  would  substitute  logic  and  au- 
thority for  investigation  and  experience — in  short, 
against  any  religion  which  would  cast  it  into  the 
shackles  of  Aristotelianism — shackles  rusty  with  the 
blood  of  tne  truth-seekers  of  a  thousand  years. 


CONCLUSION. 

It  is  submitted  that  the  foregoing  chapters  have 
shown,  firstly,  that  the  infallible  voice  of  Leo  XIII. 
has  proclaimed  anew  the  most  far  reaching  claims  of 
the  mediaeval  Papacy  on  the  relation  of  Church  and 
State ;  secondly,  that  the  much  lauded  social  pro- 
gramme of  His  Holiness  consists  in  the  organization 
of  priest-guided  labor  unions,  for  Roman  Catholics 
only  ;  thirdly,  that  the  Family  is  to  be  considered  as 
an  institution  existing  independently  of  the  State,  so 
that  the  latter  can  do  nothing  concerning  marriage 
or  the  education  of  children,  except  by  and  with  the 
advice  and  consent  of  the  Church  ;  fourthly,  that  the 
individual  must  in  every  intentional  or  rational  act 
follow  the  directions  which  may  be  given  him  by 
the  Roman  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  that  the  very  ex- 
istence of  the  independent,  spiritual  faculty  through 
which  all  men  are  to  be  quickened  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  denied  ;  lastly,  the  dependence  of  all  these 
propositions  upon  an  exploded  astrological  concep- 
tion has  been  set  forth.  If  these  are  the  fair  conclu- 
sions from  the  foregoing  lines,  does  it  not  seem  as  if 
the  rule  of  the  priesthood  over  the  laity,  against 
which  the  Reformation  was  the  protest,  is  to  be 
reestablished,  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is 
itself  guilty  of  the  sins  of  intolerance  which  it  so 
loudly  charges  upon  its  opponents,  and  that  the 
complaints  of  the  Church  are  in  fact  the  cry  of  the 
Wolf  against  the  lamb  ? 


1*7 

In  closing,  if  a  personal  remark  may  be  excused, 
the  author  would  say  that  he  is  not  a  member  of  the 
American  Protective  Association,  and  so  far  as  he 
knows  has  never  seen,  nor  received  any  communica- 
tion from  any  member  of  that  Association  ;  neither 
does  he  entertain  any  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  or  to  that 
Church  as  a  body.  On  the  contrary,  many  Roman 
Catholic  laymen  have  honored  him  with  their  friend- 
ship, and  for  the  Church  itself,  as  a  branch  of  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church,  he  entertains  a  profound 
reverence  and  respect,  for  the  centuries  of  noble 
work  which  it  has  done  for  Christ  and  humanity, 
through  its  long  lines  of  consecrated  priests,  devoted 
monks  and  holy  nuns. 

The  only  object  of  these  lines  has  been  to  show 
that  within  this  glorious  institution,  hallowed  by 
so  many  beautiful  and  sacred  associations,  there  is  at 
work  a  corrosive  which  cannot  but  in  the  course  of 
time  annihilate  all  that  has  made  .it  beautiful,  glori- 
ous and  holy.  This  evil  which  has  at  last,  through 
the  success  of  Leo  XIII.  in  making  the  text-book  of 
the  Jesuits  the  text-book  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
world,  become  dominant  in  the  Church,  can  be  de- 
scribed in  two  words :  Aristotelian  Scholasticism. 

The  Roman  Catholic  laymen  are  themselves  the 
worst  sufferers  under  this  system ;  they  have  no 
more  power  over  the  affairs  of  their  parish  or  dio- 
cese than  the  Perioeci  of  Aristotle's  Utopia,  and  if 
the  Utopia  of  Leo  XIII.  were  realized,  they  would 
have  as  little  power  over  the  Family,  the  Guild  and 
the  State.  System  and  discipline  are  beautiful  and 
much  to  be  desired,  but  is  there  any  teaching  in  the 


1 88 

New  Testament  which  justifies  man's  putting  his 
greatest  talent,  conscience,  absolutely  in  the  hands  of 
another  ? 

Eliminate  that  false  Aristotelian  philosophy,  and 
who  can  doubt  but  that,  under  the  presidency  natur- 
ally due  to  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  the  reunion  of 
Christendom  might  become  an  accomplished  fact  ? 

For  with  that  philosophy  would  go  the  ideas  that 
primacy  must  mean  infallible  absolutism  and  that 
membership  in  a  political  or  religious  corporation 
involves  suicide  of  individuality ;  that  the  com- 
munistic Utopias  of  Aristotle  and  Plato,  with  their 
privileged  classes  of  priests,  represent  the  highest 
social  organization ;  that  no  state  can  be  trusted 
with  the  education  of  its  children  or  the  regula- 
tion of  its  family  organizations ;  that  the  whole 
world  must  have  the  unanimity  necessary  in  a 
Greek  city-state  of  less  than  100,000  inhabit- 
ants; that  men  have  no  way  of  knowing  what  is 
right  or  wrong,  except  by  communications  from 
their  fellows ;  that  reason,  and  not  conscience,  should 
govern  men ;  that  laymen  have  no  rights  which 
priests  are  bound  to  respect ;  that  the  principles  of 
all  scientific  truth  were  grasped  by  one  mind,  over 
two  thousand  years  ago — in  short  that  Christianity 
and  all  modern  progress  must  be  built  upon  the 
quicksand  of  Aristotelian  philosophy. 

Christianity  has  been  adapted  to  Aristotle,  instead 
of  Aristotle  to  Christianity. 

Once  cast  out  these  ideas,  and  again  would  flour- 
ish as  a  spiritual  refuge  for  the  nations,  the  Church, 
that  mighty  tree  under  whose  benignant  branches 


1 89 

United  Christendom  for  so  many  centuries  sought 
and  found  a  shelter,  but  which  is  now,  alas,  decay- 
ing,— thanks  to  the  worm  eating  at  its  heart, — a 
noxious  influence  on  all  who  trust  themselves  within 
its  shades — a  danger  to  modern  civilization. 


31 
M5 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


'APR  2  C  19' 


LOAN 


RECtlVEC 


000864070     8 


